


we stand here, together

by nightdotlight



Series: Jedi June 2020 [8]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Post-Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, cliffhangers with chapters 5 and 6, tags updating with new chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:41:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24985498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightdotlight/pseuds/nightdotlight
Summary: Master Depa Billaba and Padawan Caleb Dume.Windu worries for them, out in the wider galaxy. Waging war, while he and Anakin sit here, waiting.But he trained Billaba, and Billaba is training Dume. Anakin once took lessons from her, when he himself was a Padawan, and he knows she is skilled enough by far, to ensure that both she and her student make it back to Coruscant safely.It’s ironic, that when cut off from the Force he can understand other people better than he has in years.
Relationships: CC-8826 | Neyo/Mace Windu, CT-7567 | Rex & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Series: Jedi June 2020 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1776460
Comments: 124
Kudos: 204





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> for day eight: letting go.
> 
> tw: decapitation, but it’s fairly non-explicit.

“He’s too dangerous to be left alive!” Windu yells, and lightning is flying, and Anakin  _ needs _ Palpatine, for Padmé, _she’ll die ,  please _ , but—

For just a second, everything stops, and—

Anakin knows Padmé. Knows what she values, what she’d want him to do. She’s important, she’s the most important thing, but.

She’s not the most important thing here. Not to her, at least, and for just a moment Anakin’s eyes are open, and he  _ sees _ .

And he knows what he has to do.

It only takes a split second. Stepping over the corpse of a Jedi Master—  _ Kit Fisto, always so calm and kind, he didn’t deserve this— _ he ignites his lightsaber.

He rushes, lunges— ducks under a rush of electricity, comes up swinging.

Blue light bisects dark cloth, and Palpatine’s shrivelled head falls to the floor. Like a burial shroud lifted, darkness rises away, and for the first time in years, Anakin can  _ breathe _ . Beside him, Master Windu chokes on a deep inhale, stumbles.

Like an instinct, Anakin’s there to support him, pulling his arm over his shoulder as Windu staggers. He’s exhausted, reeling. Clearly has taken damage in the duel, but as they share a glance, Anakin looks into his dark gaze and feels like for the first time in an eternity, they’re on equal footing.

Windu’s gaze has always held respect, but now his eyes are grateful, too, and Anakin isn’t sure what to do with that.

Can’t do anything, really, except let his own regard bleed into the Force around them, and it’s the flickering warmth of respect, his own thanks. Something quiet and concerned, too, for the Jedi Master now leaning fully onto his left shoulder, lightsaber loose in his free hand rather than clipped to his belt.

Anakin can’t blame him. The Force may be clearer, but years of war have left his mind on high alert. But—

The darkness has lifted. The Sith Lord is dead. Something deep inside Anakin recognises that this, here—  _ this is the end. _

_ It’s over .  
  
  
_

  
  


_ “You stand before the court today—“ _   
  


They return to the Temple, just briefly. Anakin drives them though the busy, silent Coruscant night; Master Windu slumps, exhausted, in the seat next to him. It’s weird; he normally seems far too dignified to take such a posture, but—

He’s human, and he’s shattered from a fight that left three Jedi Masters dead, Anakin reminds himself. Even if it’s odd, it can be accepted as a product of circumstance. They just killed the Sith Master, so it’s only natural he’s almost too tired to stand.

Parking the speeder, they make their way through the shadows of the hangar, its gaping silence. Everything is so quiet, in a way that weighs on his heart like a slab of duracrete pressing downwards, to the heat and pressure of the planet’s molten core.

That choking, wide open silence, without pause or boundary, in a galaxy that should have been cleansed of darkness.

It’s ended. It’s over.

All around them— so still, so quiet, when it feels as if the world should be screaming.

It only takes a few steps, from that too-empty hangar into the muted golden light.

There is no water dripping from the ceiling of the cell, no frigid breeze to chill his bones static and stiff.

Just three grey walls. A grey ceiling, a grey floor.

Grey force-suppressor cuffs weighing down his wrists.

The only sign that colour still exists— the red energy field, to his left when he sits on the cot they’ve provided him.

This has been his life for a day and a half. Grey, red, and that crushing silence—

_ He can’t feel the Force— _

_ Can’t feel Obi-Wan, can’t feel Ahsoka, can’t feel Padme or Rex— _

_ Are they here, are they alive, are they alright, please, are they alright— _

He doesn’t know.

“Skywalker.”

But he’s not alone.

In the cell opposite his, Mace Windu sits on an identical cot, set against one of three identical grey walls.

“Yes, Master Windu?” He asks. Looks over at him, and—

There’s always a sense of otherworldly serenity to the Jedi, something he never believed he could or would achieve. But here and now, Anakin Skywalker meets the eyes of Mace Windu through two layers of impassable scarlet energy, and for the first time sees not only a Jedi Master, but a man.

A flawed human being, just as he is.

Anakin looks at Mace Windu, and sees his own thoughts, his own fears, reflected.

Windu is just far better at controlling himself.

“Your thoughts dwell on your Master and your former Padawan,” Windu says.

It’s a trial, to overcome his hesitation and speak. “Yes,” he replies— ducks his head, staring at the floor and his slate-coloured prison-issue pants. “I worry for them. They were both in active combat, when we engaged the Sith Lord.”

(It would be a lie, to say he can reconcile himself to the truth. That his mentorly, fatherly friend, was all along manipulating him, playing both sides of the war—

It makes something like bile crawl up his throat.

He wants to escape the knowledge of it. But he can’t, and it was things like that about him that Palpatine preyed on, in order to mislead him.

He’s going to have to change, and—

It can start here and now.)

Windu sighs, quietly. “They are both capable,” he says, “and I do not believe that the Republic would withhold such information from us, even if we are treasonous.”

“Yes, Master Windu,” Anakin says. Looks up and over, meeting his eyes, and—

Only days ago, he wouldn’t stop to consider just why Windu knew the answer to his feelings.

Today, he looks into the solemn gaze of a Jedi Master, and he understands how he could have the answer.

_ Master Depa Billaba and Padawan Caleb Dume. _

Windu worries for them, out in the wider galaxy. Waging war, while he and Anakin sit in cells awaiting trial.

But he trained Billaba, and Billaba is training Dume. Anakin once took lessons from her, when he himself was a Padawan, and he knows she is skilled enough by far, to ensure that both she and her student make it back to Coruscant safely.

It’s ironic, that when cut off from the Force he can understand other people better than he has in  _ years _ .

Depa’s the first to come to them. Straight from Kaller, her Padawan hot on her heels, she enters the cell block—

Stops short.

The look on her face is  _ devastated _ when she sees Mace.

“Caleb,” she whispers, without even turning her head.

Young Caleb Dume, with all the maturity a child his age shouldn’t have, understands. Reaches out; squeezes Depa’s hand once, firmly, and turns to move to the end of the corridor.

Commander Grey is there, waiting. Mace can’t say he’s surprised, or less than incredibly grateful.

If things go as he expects, Depa will need all the support she can get.

Depa. Through the energy field, he looks at her. Understands, because they both know what’s going to happen.

He stays still and serene as her eyes dart over his face, taking in every detail. As if from a great distance away, he can feel a slight nudge at their bond, taking an impression of his mind, but too weak for him to reciprocate.

“Mace,” she murmurs. He can hear the thick tears in her voice, so much like they were those nights she woke from nightmares, her a Padawan and he a young Knight entrusted with something precious beyond belief.

“Depa,” he rumbles in return, oh-so-quiet, soothing, and when the first tear escapes from the corner of her eye, his only regret is that he can’t reach through the Force to comfort her.

“You saved us, Mace,” she says, so quiet. From the corner of his eye, he can see Skywalker in his own cell, pretending to be asleep so as not to disturb. Trying not to eavesdrop.

Mace appreciates it.

“You know what will happen next,” she says now. So solemn, so calm even in her own turmoil and preemptive grief, and—

He could never be more proud of her. Not in a thousand years, a thousand timelines.

That night, in the office— there was a shatterpoint, that thick and suffocating sensation of the future shattering around him. Just for a moment, he saw—

_ “Caleb, go! I’ll be right behind you—“ _

_ Blaster fire, a band of green parting darkness before extinguishing— _

_ A figure running up the hill, panic and betrayal and darkness— _

_ A body on the floor— _

“You are here, and you are alive,” he tells Depa. “The Order continues to stand. The Republic did not fall.”

_ I give myself, _ he does not say. Does not mention the price the universe demands, that the Jedi and Republic may continue.

They both already know.

“I know, Mace— Master,” she says, with that deep, sorrowful smile. She grieves for him even now, as he stands not a metre in front of her.

“The future is the future, Depa,” Mace reminds her. Smiles softly at her expression, the briefly chastising glance she flickers at him. It has been a long time since she was a Padawan.

His daughter in all but blood takes a deep breath. “Caleb,” she calls, turning around to guide him towards Mace’s cell.

Jedi are not given to having regrets, but—

If Mace has just one, it is that he was never able to get to know his grand-padawan properly. One of them High General and Master of the Order, the other a Commander and Padawan, they have both missed out on so much.

But not everything.

“Caleb,” Mace says, putting as much comfort into the word as is possible, and smiles at him. It’s as gentle an expression as he can make it, calm and soft and warm, and he can see the moment his serenity crumbles.

Tears trickle down Caleb Dume’s face so slowly that they could be stationary, and he looks at Mace like he wants to commit this moment to memory. “I’ll miss you,” he chokes out, and then— “I know you’ll be in the Force, Master, I do, but— I just wish you could stay a little longer, please.”

“Everyone has their time,” Mace says, “but as long as you remember me, as long as you remain one with the Force— I will be with you, Caleb. For eternity.”

Caleb’s face really does crumple then, his shoulders slumping, but before the tears can really begin he is pulled into an embrace, hiding his face in a duraplast breastplate.

Commander Grey meets his eyes. Nods once, slowly, with that unmistakable sorrow and grief clouding his expression.

“General,” he says. Lifts a salute to his brow. “You don’t deserve this, sir,” he says. “You did a service to the Republic.”

“It’s not a matter of what I deserve,” says Mace. “It’s a matter of what was done, and the consequences that must be observed.”

Grey nods.

_ “ Ret'urcye mhi _ _,_ General,” he says.  _ Maybe we’ll meet again. _

It’s bittersweet.

Depa Billaba steels herself to walk away.

Mace knows that for her own sake, she can’t look back.

  
  


_ They’re side by side. _

_ “You stand before the court today—“ _

On the third day, Anakin is taken out of his cell— not by the spiteful faces and rough hands of the GAR navy officers, this time. He’s not hauled from behind the energy field and dragged down a corridor by people with low voices, twisted faces.

No, it’s not them this time. Commander Fox holds Anakin’s wrists in a firm grip and walks him past the rows of cells. They’ve never got along, not really, but— through the black fabric of his gloves, Fox’s hands are warm, and he doesn’t grasp tight, doesn’t press his fingers into the purpling bruises on his forearms.

They walk, just inches apart, through uniform grey corridors; no stopping. When they eventually do halt, Anakin focuses his eyes ahead, to the durasteel door that covers the wall ahead.

They enter; Fox steps into parade rest when the door closes behind them. Covering the exit— regulations say Jedi prisoners are too dangerous for private visitations.

In the middle of the room, there’s a table, and—

_ She’s there. _

“I can’t defend you, Ani,” Padmé says, face downcast. Like she can’t quite meet his eyes. “It’s been ruled a conflict of interest, and now with the twins—“

“—I’m so sorry, Ani,” she whispers, and he would do anything to wipe that look from her face, that despair.

She looks like her world is crumbling around her.

The worst part is, Anakin knows it’s true.

It feels so long ago, that he would have burnt down the galaxy to be with her, even if less than a week has passed. But—

That night, when lightning flew and the choice was his to make, he began to understand just what might make a person leave their heart behind, purely out of love.

Padmé is everything, and the galaxy exists in her, and—

The best thing Anakin can do for her is stay here. Face the consequences.

He smiles at his wife, gathers up his love so that it shines out of his expression.  _ This is how she’ll remember him. _

“Twins,” he wonders, smothering melancholy with a new father’s joy. “Tell me about them?” He asks, and she does.

When it’s time to leave, Commander Fox escorts him back. In the moments before deactivating the energy field, his fingers squeeze Anakin’s wrist, just gently, and just for a moment, he can feel his regard, his gratitude, like hearing a shout from across a desert.

“Thank you,” Anakin says, quiet.

Fox doesn’t answer as he presses the buttons to reactivate the energy field, but his gaze is heavy on Anakin’s shoulders when he nods, a hair’s breadth from imperceptible.

It’s a weight that remains even as the Commander of the Coruscant guard walks away.


	2. Chapter 2

“I suppose it’s too late to claim diplomatic immunity, unfortunately,” Windu says one night, out of nowhere into the silence, and despite everything—

Anakin can’t help but laugh. It’s a hollow, airy thing, more breath and mourning than sound, but still. It’s a laugh.

“I’m not sure how you’d go about getting that anyway, Master,” he says, and where the title once tasted so bitter on his tongue, now it is the only spot of warmth in a cold cell. Welcome; almost comforting.

Across the corridor, Windu looks over at his reclined, blanketed form from where he sits in a meditative pose. Kneeling on the duracrete floor, legs a barrier between the vacuous-cold surface and his torso— he briefly wonders how the Jedi Master can be so still, so calm, while Anakin himself feels like his bones will abandon his body any minute, leaving only sand and flimsy skin behind to go on trial.

The problem— this doesn’t feel real, sometimes, in the empty cell and the grey walls and ceiling. He feels like a droid, malfunctioning— feels like a mirage, ephemeral, destined to crumble and dissolve into a haze at a single breath or touch.

“In the first years of the war,” Windu says, “I visited Concord Dawn, in order to negotiate an alliance with the Journeyman Protectors led by Fenn Rau. Of course, the situation in the system at the time being what it was—“ he tilts his head, just slightly, and Anakin  knows , that on anybody else that would be a wry grin— “we found ourselves attacked by a Death Watch detachment intending to take the planet.”

“Really?” Slowly, trying not to lose the precious little heat he’s collected, Anakin pulls himself off the cot to sit on the floor, mimicking Windu’s pose as best he can without disrupting the blankets wrapped around his body— the floor is cold, leaching body heat from his limbs in a matter of seconds, but—

As he arranges himself to mirror the other man’s pose, meeting his gaze through double-shrouds of crimson, he can’t bring himself to regret it.

Because—

If he’s going to do this, if he’s going to handle it,  _ if he’s going to have any semblance of peace at all— _

Talking to Mace Windu is probably a good place to start.

“Yes,” the Jedi Master allows. “Although the skirmish was hard-fought, we eventually won, and the Protectors joined the Republic as an ally. Fenn Rau offered me a favour, though I doubt it would extend to matters such as this.” His voice is filled with the kind of dry, ironic humour that Anakin never thought he would have— the type borne of acceptance, and the certain kind of darkness needed to laugh at your own grave.

Anakin chuckles again, just as hollow as last time but more substantial in sound. “Probably now, Master Windu. But maybe he’ll do something nice for you, leave some nice flowers or something.”

The joke doesn’t land— it fell flat on its face somewhere between here and Haruun Kal. Regardless, Mace Windu half-huffs a tired laugh, offering Anakin a dry, slanted smile. 

“Perhaps,” he says, and then there’s silence.

On Mandalore—

Ahsoka Tano grips her head. There is something tearing through her mind, a dragon set loose, frightful and burning and empty—

The Force is dark and quiet, smoke from which the monster rises, and Ahsoka looks up, up, up at the snout and the fire and the teeth and meets with a stone-faced gaze the raging hollowness of its eyes.

A Jedi’s duty is to face down monsters so she opens her mouth and says—

_ name yourself— _

She does not flinch as its jaws open and it sucks in breath because she can feel the name coming forth—

And then it is gone.

Rex stands over her, fear written into his expression. Beside him, Jesse, just as concerned behind his helmet, holds out a hand to lift her up from where she dropped— when did she collapse?— to her knees, steadies her when her muscles prove useless.

Now, she can breathe without sucking in smoke. Her vision is clear; worried gazes bleed into the air to caress her, and Rex’s hand is warm on her shoulder, an anchor to reality.

The Force is quiet, still. The monster is vanquished. Everything is silent.

And that is the scariest thing, because—

In those moments of fear and entangled feeling—

She could have sworn that dragon’s name was  _ Anakin _ .

_ “The accusation—“ _

Anakin sleeps.

His eyes are closed, his mind closed from the Force.

But he still dreams, and for the first time in a lifetime his dreams are exactly what they ought to be—

They are just dreams.

Anakin Skywalker dreams of cutting a braid, smiling at a man with copper hair, laughing with a now-woman whose voice is like a Tatooine dawn. He dreams of a baby’s laughter, golden hair catching the light.

He dreams of pressing a kiss into sleep-warm curls of dark hair, breathing in the scent of milk and  _ life _ , exhaling warmth and comfort. He dreams of whispering:  _ I would die for you. _

Then he is away, and he watches a faceless stranger with his children in his arms, and he struggles, wants to fight.

Those are  _ his _ children, he wants to scream. That is  _his family_ .

But—

He is on a roof, and there is broken glass everywhere, and the night sky is alight with blue flame. When he looks over, there is a barrier of flame, and Padme, her face filled with helpless terror—

Beside him is the faceless stranger, holding the twins.

Anakin wants to take them, wants to get to safety with them, wants them, but he cannot move his limbs, and when he looks down he is bolted to the stone, chains and manacles weighing him down to paralyse.

_ Go _ , he wants to say. But the words won’t come out, his mouth not moving or no air passing his lips, and with every passing moment the flame licks closer— he screams, shouts, pleads:  _ go! _

It’s so futile, he can’t make a sound, the faceless stranger stares at him and he wishes,  _ please, take them and go. Leave me here. _

_ Leave me here, and save them. _

And out of everything, in the midst of flame and fear and the overseeing night sky, there is a miracle.

The stranger turns, the twins held close to their body, and runs through the flames, and—

Again, they embrace Padme, press a kiss to brown curls and smile at golden laughter.

Anakin watches, and even as the fire licks at his body, he doesn’t feel a thing.

They are safe. He loves them.

He will die for them.

When he wakes, his cheeks are sticky and salty with tears.

_ “Be calm,” he whispers. _

_ “The accusation—“ _

Last night, Anakin was crying in his sleep.

Mace knows this— because while he lay awake, unable to force his eyes closed, he heard it; quiet, unwary sobs, the sound of despair entrenched so deep that even unconscious it is reflected.

He doesn’t know what Skywalker dreamed of, and he likely will not ask; something like that, felt deeply enough to set roots in the subconscious, is private to an individual.

Mace understands the emotion behind it, though. Even if he gave his to the Force long ago, the fear of death— well, it is only human.

And Anakin is so young, compared to Mace. Barely a Knight, but on the Council regardless. Barely an adult, but with skill and necessity promoted so high that his responsibility was equal to those twice his age.

It is the role of a Jedi, of course— to take on those burdens which others cannot, and Skywalker was more than capable. But still, no matter how strong he is, how courageous, he is  young ; immature if only by brain chemistry, and he has yet to shake those instincts that are written in blood and bone.

Whatever he dreamed— well, it was his subconscious coming to terms with this, achieving peace days after the rest of him had.

Mace Windu has long held the belief that peace is unnatural. It goes against the natural order.

But not all things that are natural are good, especially for Jedi.

So when Anakin asks him if it’s okay to be afraid, he says—

“It’s natural. But that does not make it good,” and opens his eyes to meet Anakin’s from between two layers of red.

His face is twisted in confusion. “What do you mean, Master?” He asks, curious, and just for a moment, Mace is hit by the image of Obi-Wan making that same expression, questioning and more than a little frustrated with lack of answers.

“It is an instinct, to feel fear at your own death. It’s perfectly natural,” Mace says, “however—“

“However,” Anakin echoes, looking at him with something almost lost in his eyes.

“—it is crucial that as Jedi, we control the instinct, rather than allowing it to control us; and maintain a distance between volatile emotions and our decision-making. Not doing so is an unacceptable risk to take, especially with those as strong in the Force as you: as a trained Force-sensitive and Jedi, it is not only a matter of safety bit of  duty , that you control your instincts. They make it far too easy to hurt and kill without thought.”

Anakin just sits there, pensive, at Mace’s words. Then—

“It’s not _fair_ ,” he whispers, voice trembling and cracking with despair on every syllable. Painfully young, and—

Normally Mace would expect more control from a Jedi. They are taught discipline, serenity, and though it is far from taboo to display, this is different in a sense. To see it overflow and spill out down cheeks as glass streaks is something else entirely.

But Anakin Skywalker is painfully young, and facing death, and to die not for doing the wrong thing, but for making the  _ only right choice _ , is a special type of despair— one Mace has grappled with, staring blankly at the light-polluted sky of Coruscant. He’d sat there, in the seat, and known exactly what would follow.

It is possible to read a story in glass. The words are in the cracks; there are whispers in the fracture point.

And the universe, for all its longevity, is nothing but glass.

“It’s not fair,” Skywalker whispers again, and for a minute he could be any young man. The war has stolen light from his eyes and what baby fat should remain from his cheeks, but for a second— a glimpse, of a young man with a blue lightsaber, fluffy golden curls, a grin curving across his face. 

What could have been, but in the here and now, Anakin is drowning, and Mace will help him swim.

“You’re right, it isn’t fair,” he says. “But few things in life are. All we can do now is observe justice, which will fortify civilisation. That will allow for peace to return, and from there on— we must have faith, and hope a peaceful galaxy will be a fairer one.”

“Our responsibility, as Jedi, is to see it through?” Anakin asks. He seems to have found his conviction, and something like syrup, melancholy-sweet pride pools in Mace’s chest— he would have been a Jedi Master, if only for a few more years.

“Yes,” Mace says, quiet. “Through this, the Order lives.”

Anakin doesn’t ask any more questions, and Mace holds on to his relief for only a moment before letting it go, a sigh in a breeze.

Relief, because what he saw that night, through the cracks in the glass of the galaxy—

He doesn’t think he could explain that to anyone.


	3. Chapter 3

On the evening of the sixth day, Anakin’s eyes open from a haze of blood and sand and  _ screaming _ onto slate-grey duracrete. Air rushes from his lungs in a never-ending gasp as he stares at the ceiling, and it takes him more than a few moments to remember when,  _ where _ he is.

He’s slept through the day before— after hard campaigns, difficult missions, sometimes even after some of the more intensive strategy meetings. But this is the first time it’s left him exhausted.

Funny, that he sleeps so much now, when in just a matter of days, he knows— darkness and rest will be all he has left.

A flicker of an image— a thought, a memory of his unquiet dream, crosses his vision; he shudders. He kicked away the blankets in his sleep, and the still, cold air of evening does nothing to quell the acidic tang of bile as it rises in his throat.

Memories, and the dreams that come with them have always been difficult, for Anakin. No matter how he tries to loosen his grip, his fingers stick, and in the stale miasma of evening they sift through his grasp, clot his throat like sand.

He thought that when he left Tatooine, he’d left the ghosts in the desert behind him. He’d thought them trapped, as he once had been, by atmosphere and vacuum and the gravity that chained him to his prison.

But the rules of the dead are different to those of the living. In the twilight Anakin begins to choke, a forest fire’s smoke in his lungs— and with every exhale he coughs them out, a heat haze in too-still, too-quiet air.

_ He knows, he  _ knows _ they have to face this. _

Mace can’t sense Yoda in the Force— so naturally, he has no idea that he’s coming until he hears the unmistakable  _ tap tap tap _ of gimer wood against duracrete, accompanied by two sets of marching footsteps.

He slides out of meditation, opens his eyes; rises. When the Grandmaster— his oldest mentor and friend, the kindly teacher of every one of his childhood lessons— stops in front of him, the only barrier between them red light and his own disconnection from the Force, Mace bows.

Yoda— for all Mace’s life, he’s been a guiding hand. A bastion of light and wisdom, always kind, always patient. Even when Mace truffled and thrashed against the threads of darkness in his youth. Even when his anger boiled and overflowed, Yoda was there. He was there, and he was gentle, and the golden warmth of his presence burned out the cold and the shadows.

More recently, he’s been a friend, then a fellow in blood and battle. Still, Mace will always remember lessons, gentleness,  _ light _ .

Yoda is his first memory.

It’s only fitting, that he should be one of his last.

(Of course, the trial has not yet happened. No verdict has been passed, but— Mace doesn’t need the Force to see where this will go.

Between hundreds of thousands of innocents, and his own life— it was never even a decision.)

When he looks up, the two clone guards who were flanking Yoda are already retreating down the corridor to a respectful distance. They’re marked with the green paint of the 41st, some of the patterns rubbed out— they haven’t had the time to repaint after returning from Kashyyyk.

Mace thanks them silently. The war is over, and they had no obligation to come with Yoda— yet they have, in order to allow Mace and Anakin this time with the person who has loved them, unconditionally, from the moment they entered his life.

Slowly, one near-silent footstep and  _ tap _ at a time, Yoda moves closer to the energy field. Mace can’t help but mirror the movement, coming closer and closer until there is not even a metre between them. Closer than they’ve been able to be for months, this last year spent with parsecs separating them.

If he was not trapped in here, he would be able to reach out and offer Yoda a lift up; maybe rest a hand on his shoulder, this time without the worry for his wellbeing.

Mace looks down; Yoda looks up. Then, the Grandmaster retreats to the centre of the corridor and sits, motioning for Mace to do the same. Gestures to Anakin, too, until the three of them sit in a loose triangle, each in plain view of the other two. Both he and Anakin are connected in this, despite the physical distance inflicted on them, and—

Looking over at him, Mace begins to see what could have been. What the two of them could have become, if they had breached the gap into a more substantial friendship under better circumstances.

They were already good, when they fought together,but—

Given more time, another chance, they could have helped so many people together.

They could have done so much for the galaxy and those who live in it.

But it does not do well to dwell on impossibilities. 

“Strange events, these have been,” he begins. “But fortuitous, too, perhaps they were.”

“The war is over,” Mace says, and it’s an agreement. Takes a breath, and then, “but too many have died, to call it a victory.”

Yoda sighs, nods. “Right, you are— died, have too many already. In the line of duty, more may still die.”

He looks up at Mace, then to Anakin, and it’s what’s in that steadfast green gaze that makes all the difference. Inevitability, acceptance, grief— they are all there, but they are not alone. Light is the counterpoint to shadow. Colour is counterpoint to shades of grey.

Yoda’s eyes are filled with— compassion, uncomplicated love, too. Selfless, and kind, and just for a second, Mace feels it as surely as if he could touch the Force. Lets it wash over him, drain the tension from his muscles and his mind. It brings him peace, in this moment, as it always has, from crêcheling to Jedi Master.

Quietly, Yoda begins to speak once more. “A Jedi Master, you are— and Skywalker, a Knight, you have been for years,” he says, “but to me— to me, only initiates, you seem. So young. So brave, despite youth.”

“Proud of you both, I will always be. For this, especially,” he says, and— more than anything, those words bring Mace peace. It has been difficult to banish his fear in the face of his own mortality, even despite accepting his fate, but to know that Yoda is proud of him for this—

Yoda does not admit pride often, and knowing that he will have that small glow to carry him through the darkness in the aftermath of this, well—

It means a lot, to know this will not be Yoda’s undoing.

It’s important to Anakin, as well, Mace knows— and when he casts his gaze over to the Knight’s face, he looks nearly devastated, breaking under the weight of his fate and Yoda’s regard.

Young they may both seem to the Grandmaster— but if that is true, Anakin is only a child. Were circumstances different, the Jedi would have protected him from this. From all of this, which he’s faced—  _ is facing— _ at such a young age. 

But things are as they are, and the sacrifices they both make will shield generations of young Force-sensitives from the same fate.

Yoda is not the only one proud of Anakin.

Of course, in the next weeks Yoda will bend— will have to, if he is to endure. But only a few months ago, he had seemed so brittle, so close to breaking at the stress points of the war.

He didn’t, and he won’t, and for that Mace will always be thankful.

Yoda looks up, and there’s something— rueful, almost. Resolved, weighted. There’s no shatterpoint here, but it’s the same feeling. This moment is a fulcrum, the three of them the balance.

The Grandmaster takes a deep breath. “Know, now,” he say, “that always Jedi, you will be. Expelled you, we may have, under the orders of the Senate— but always,” he stresses the word, steady eyes moving from Mace to Anakin and back, “ _ always _ , Jedi will you be. To me, and to every other member of the Jedi Order— Mace Windu,” he says. “Anakin Skywalker,” he continues. “Jedi, you  _ always will be _ .”

He looks between them again, then nods, seemingly satisfied with what he has said. “Limited time with you, I have,” he says. “But meditate, I would like to. Find peace in this, together, we shall.”

Mace is awake in the thick darkness of the cells’ sleep cycle, but despite the emptiness of air and shadow, his mind does not reflect his surroundings.

Anakin is asleep, and by the way his head moves from side to side, limbs occasionally jerking, it is obvious that his dreams are unquiet.

It reminds Mace of those nights in the jungle; the darkness, the heat, the swamping fear that filled his nights and dreams with horror.

But when Mace’s mission was over, he left Haruun Kal behind him. The summertime war, the darkness in the jungle— they are lost to time, consigned to become dust and memories as surely as he himself will return to the Force.

For Anakin, though, the nightmares did not leave. He is in the jungle now, fighting something nobody else can see; his own dreams, his own mind.

It speaks of shadows that need to be leached, of demons that should be let with blood to the air and earth.

But they remain with Anakin, now; those memories playing over closed eyes, those dreams that torment his unconscious mind.

From here, two walls separating them and cut off from the Force, Mace has no way to help him, no way to pull his mind from restless thoughts and calm him. 

Anakin is on his own, tonight.

Mace cannot save him from the darkness in the jungle.

_ Joints locked against failing, falling— this is the hardest part of it all, keeping his head held high. _

_ He knows, he  _ knows _ they have to face this. _

Anakin wakes up, bolts upright with a gasp and a cry, and before the echo can even  _ think _ to exist, Mace’s eyes are open, and he is moving.

He stands before the barrier, looking through two layers of red, deceptively gossamer. Like he could just reach out, take a few steps, and touch calm to Anakin’s mind—

Except he can’t.

He never thought he’d be without it— but the Force is not with him, now. He cannot feel it, no matter how it must embrace him.

When he looks at Anakin, he can see startled tears in skyward-facing blue eyes, shock and cold air bringing rise to a layer of saline liquid across his lower lash line.

It’s not unusual for Anakin’s emotions to colour the atmosphere, to leak into the Force like pigment into water— but never like this, that Mace has seen. Never so deeply, that it cuts him to his core and  _ bleeds _ , a raw wound painted in tears and choking breaths.

But right now—

Anakin is bleeding, soul torn open by something hidden and  _ dark _ , and Mace—

Whatever happens, Mace will always at his core be a Jedi Master. He and Anakin have been similar— perhaps  too similar, leaving them no room to accommodate differences— but right now he may understand more of this than anyone else could.

That, and—

Right now, he’s all Anakin has.

Whether he’ll help isn’t even a  _ question _ .

“Anakin,” Mace begins, quietly. Like he’s calming a spooked animal, something young and frightened and backed into a corner. “Your dreams trouble you,” he says, and when he sees Anakin begin to tense up, adds quickly, “it’s far from a personal failing, or a failing as a Jedi. But it will be beneficial, given what is coming, for you to face this.”

Not necessary. Not a matter of safety. Just—  _ good _ . It will benefit Anakin, to exorcise these demons. It will make his load lighter to carry; they both carry so much already.

It will never be a sin, to carry secrets to the grave. Mace is an outlier, willing to bare his heart and spirit to so many— Depa, Yoda, even the Force.

His soul has never been opaque. Light shines through it, bares all to be seen, and he has never flinched from it. Mace Windu is known, and all the better for it.

Anakin Skywalker’s soul, though he now cannot see it, is so far from transparent, dark satin and thick dust blocking out the sun.

But light shines through the cracks, and—

It would help him, to widen those cracks. To be  _ known _ , before he dies, even if there are only a few secrets he can bear to offer up, sacrifice for peace of mind.

This could be a step towards that.

Mace tries again. “It’s not necessary,” he says. “You don’t have to. But, if we are truly to both die—“ he cuts himself off, looking down before raising his gaze once more— “then I believe it would be better to go to our execution with our heads held high, rather than filled with the echoes of nightmares.”

For the first time since he woke up, Anakin’s eyes rise to meet Mace’s gaze, lucid and teary. Just for a second, they seem—

_ Haunted _ . Ever-so-slightly searching, perhaps, but shadowed by more than just the darkness of night-cycle.

He says nothing, but he doesn’t outright  _ reject _ the possibility, either, so—

Mace doesn’t return to his cot. Instead, he sinks to a meditative position on the duracrete flooring, and— if he won’t sleep tonight, he can at the very least meditate.

That will be enough, for Mace.

Whatever peace he can find, can lead Anakin to find, in tonight’s silence will be enough.

Berchest is a beautiful planet.

The Living Force is strong here; a current flowing through the trees and sky, channelling through the earth. Just for a second, Ahsoka allows herself to focus on the sensation, finding peace in the connection to the galaxy. Just for a second, she and the Force, the surroundings, the planet are one, but—

She does not have time to lose herself.

Rex is beside her, his helmet on as he watches Appo converse with the owner of this shipyard. Their hyperdrive’s shot— it was already on its last legs from the battle, the wear and tear of war, but halfway back to Coruscant it gave up the ghost.

Berchest is a beautiful planet. But it has already been six days since her vision—  _ could it be called such a thing, when more than stung her eyes the smoke had filled her lungs and choked her?— _ and Ahsoka does not have time to spare.

Calm and bright the Force may be, but every mind within it is clouded. Confusion, suspicion— and at the centre of it all, two names.

Mace Windu. Anakin Skywalker.

The Supreme Chancellor is dead, and—

There’s a story in between the lines, there, but nobody knows it, yet; and Ahsoka allows herself to fear that the wrath of the Galactic Senate may not care for the story.

It will only care for the blood.

An intake of breath beside her, and a gloved hand gripping her shoulder in a way that’s more for support than her comfort is what first snags her attention.

Then she sees the news bulletin, projected in the blue of an overcast sky against brickwork of a copper-powder green.

“Mace Windu,” the newscaster reads without even a twitch of the lips, “Anakin Skywalker, arrested for the murder of the Supreme Chancellor. Accused of treason.”

She had— perhaps not considered. Expected.

_ Accused of treason. _

Still, it rings in her ears.

Treason, and of course she had known, of course she had put the pieces together of the Coruscant Guard and the body of the Chancellor, but to hear it so plainly. To see it in the text now projected, so damning—

Enough.

She  _ does not have time to lose herself. _

Numb, she reaches for her own shoulder. Tangles her fingers with Rex’s, because he isn’t the only one who needs support, and right now— knowing he is with her, that is enough. Knowing he will help her, that is enough.

At first it was just a vision; but their fast pace home was a mutual decision.

Ahsoka looks up, back at the bulletin, the information. In her chest, she can feel her heart accelerate  _ alla marcia _ , the pace of many boots against the earth. Determined.

The trial is scheduled for—

“Rex,” Ahsoka turns to him, sees her own frantic energy mirrored across his face. He’s removed his helmet, and now breathes deeply, in that deliberate prevention of a gasp. “How fast can we get to Coruscant?”

He looks contemplative for a moment, then— “five days, give or take,” he says, resolve colouring his voice and expression.

His eyes meet hers.

They both know they’ll be pushing it.

“How fast can we leave?” Ahsoka asks, and the words tumble from her mouth in the tempo of her heartbeat.

“An hour,” Rex says, for a second clenching his jaw— from fear or frustration, she can’t tell. “We’ll have to scramble, but I have faith we can get there in time.”

“The Force will provide,” she says, and then, “but I suppose Anakin would call it luck.”

Luck, and— they certainly have been lucky, to get this far.

More than anything, they’ve got a  _ chance _ . They’ve got Maul, and he can testify. They’ve got Rex, and what he had mentioned of Fives. They’ve even got a righteous cause, and even though she stopped believing in the power of such a thing years ago, she will revive her hope for this.

Anakin had faith in her. Anakin fought for her, when nobody else would, nobody else  _ could _ .

She will return the favour.

The Senate wants her master’s blood, but Ahsoka is a Jedi. Ahsoka saves lives.

Ahsoka will save his, too. There’s no other choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y’all: this is hurting me
> 
> me, looking at my outline for the last two chapters:


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _surprise_

_Obi-Wan Kenobi—_

The day before the trial, he comes crashing into the cell block in a whirl of cream tunics and red hair, carrying with him all of the noise and calamity that Mace has come to expect from Anakin over the years.

“Anakin,” he says, the word shuddering out of breathless lungs. “Mace,” he says, then, looking over to him with a twisted, grieving expression. Then— “ _ Anakin _ ,” he says again, and the word is strangled, a tortured sound. As he all but runs to the Jedi Knight’s cell, every line in his body is frantic and fearful.

If Mace were any other person, were not a Jedi— he might have felt jealous, felt slighted. But he is a Jedi, and more than that— he is a  _ Master _ , knows what it is to have a Padawan.

Were he on the outside— were Depa the one in the cell— he knows, with every bone and atom that to say he’d do anything else would be a lie. It is the duty of every Master to prioritise their student, and even through the caution that lingers—  _ attachment _ , and the duty each one carries with the self— so many Jedi retain that awareness far after their charge has been knighted.

Obi-Wan will possibly suffer from this the most. Anakin has been his charge— for well over a decade, now. Their bond is so strong, a coil of wire forged in fire and fury—  _war_ , and unconditional love, that he isn’t sure even death will manage to fully sever it.

That won’t make it any better for Anakin’s master, though— in fact, it will likely make the separation, the stretch and eventual  _ snap _ of the bond far more painful.

No, he would never begrudge Obi-Wan his decision to approach Anakin first. They will both need this, and— privacy will likely be appreciated.

With the Force, it would be far easier to do this. But— that would never stop Mace, no matter for whose sake it was. For the young Knight he’s come to think fondly of, for his long-term friend— Mace would give them anything he could, but tonight he will settle for their solitude, in what will likely be emotional vulnerability.

Slowly, methodically, he stretches his mind out, focuses inward; tunes out the outside world in favour of the high peaks and clouds that make up his inner. Focuses on the first, outermost, thoughts— the most shallow climb, the lowest summit, and with the ease of practice sinks into as deep a meditation he can manage, a long trek over mountains he built under guidance of his own Master, so long ago.

He can give them this privacy, at least.

“ _Obi-Wan_ ,” Anakin chokes out; reaches for him, and— he can’t touch him. Can’t get close enough, with the barrier between, has to face that he likely won’t, ever again, but—

Master Windu is meditating, at least, so they have privacy. And—

This is  _ something _ , at least; the familiar face filtered in red light, every detail of it the same as he remembers.

As Anakin looks, he notices— on his left cheekbone, there’s a purpling bruise. 

“Did Grievous give you that?” Anakin points, and— suddenly this is all that matters. This moment, Obi-Wan’s face. Checking that he is okay.

Making sure that he will be okay, after— everything.

It’s already difficult—  _ visceral _ , in a way he’ll never get used to, to not feel their bond where it feels like it always has been. Almost like after Geonosis, the phantom agony of losing a limb, except it’s  _Obi-Wan_.  He’s spent more of his life with that presence next to his mind than he has without. The last time he was alone in his head was when he was nine years old, and even then he could still feel the Force.

Now, he’s just—  _ empty _ , hollowed out, in a way he’ll never be able to understand.

It almost feels like a blessing, that he won’t live long enough like this for it to become normal.

But— that doesn’t matter, right now.

All that matters is that right now— Obi-Wan is alive, safe, right in front of him.

He already knows—  _ he already misses his Master— _

He already knows that out of everything in the universe, all that it contains, everything it has ever given him—

Anakin Skywalker will miss Obi-Wan Kenobi the very most.

More than anything, Anakin wishes that one last time, he could reach out. Curl up in his Master’s arms, fall asleep with that sense of safety, security, love one last time, as he did so often when he was younger.

If he did— would he ever leave? Would he ever want to wake up? Or would he wish to die, right there, surrounded by the person who’s the other half of his soul, safe and loved and at peace?

It doesn’t matter.

Anakin knows— he has to let go. For Obi-Wan’s sake— he can’t afford to cling on, can’t afford to deny reality.

If he can make it easier for his Master— if he can make it bearable at all, in any way—

He will. He  _ has to. _

There’s no other choice but to help Obi-Wan, as he’s been helped so many times, over so many years.

“This bruise?” Obi-Wan gestures to the patch of mottled skin. “Yes, I gained it during the battle— took a blow to the face—“ he quiets, then. Looks up at Anakin, and says, voice choked up and stifled with sorrow— “it seems to me, though, that between the two of us, you’re the one who made the real sacrifice.”

“It’s not too bad, Master,” Anakin says. Maybe if he can provoke a laugh, it will clear that awful, agonised look off Obi-Wan’s face. “We’re lucky I was the one on Coruscant— after all,” he adds, “you always did say that you were never brave enough for politics.”

Regardless of the intention behind it, the crack just causes anguish to seep deeper into Obi-Wan’s expression, the lines on his face that seem to have appeared overnight but likely appeared years ago, having taken root over the last few days, the uncertainty Anakin feels sure the galaxy is swimming in.

“Yes,” he whispers, stuttered, soft with grief. “I suppose I did, my Padawan.”

Anakin— he hadn’t realised that they were still standing. At the endearment, it’s as if all of a sudden he is just a Padawan, a boy all of eleven, with stars in his eyes and his heart in the palms of the teacher, protector, companion, he has found in Obi-Wan Kenobi.

It’s only when his knees hit duracrete that he realises, how he at his Master’s words sank to the ground.

In some cultures, there’s this idea. Soulmates. The person you live beside, grow with— learn with, until your eroded edges match, a puzzle nobody else can solve, and you look at them and realise that this person fits you like nobody else ever can or will. Your lives have forged into one, and you are as one person, now. One soul in two bodies.

Anakin’s heart belongs to Padme— but his soul will always, forever, be in the possession of one Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Opposite him, his Master settles on the ground also. His cheeks— they’re wet, shiny, with silent tears, and Anakin wishes—  _ oh, he wishes— _ that he could reach out, offer comfort. Wipe the tears of his other half and hold, be held, close.

it’s impossible. He lets it go.

“You— you are so  _ brave _ , my Padawan,” Obi-Wan whispers, “I am so proud of you, Anakin. You proved to me, to everybody, that you are every ounce the Jedi we thought you could be, every bit the hero Qui-Gon saw in you. You are—“ he cuts himself off. Inhales, exhales, and starts again— “you are everything I could have ever dreamed of teaching you to become, all those years ago. I only wish, that we could have known—” His voice trails off, the last syllable just air and shaky breath. “That we could have had more time. That what time we did have wasn’t filled with war and violence. I wish—“ he really does choke on his words, now, suffocating on his own breath— “that i could have  _ protected _ you, Padawan. That I could have saved you, from this.” He gestures to the cell, the block.

_ I would have taken your place. _ It goes unsaid.

Anakin doesn’t care for the sentiment. He doesn’t think he ever could.

In every timeline, in every universe— it will always be him in the cell.

No force in any galaxy, any infinity, could prevent him from giving his life for Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Not even the man himself.

“Master,” Anakin whispers, then says, louder, “Master, Obi-Wan— look at me,” he pleads, until the man looks up to meet a steady blue gaze with liquid eyes.

“It’s alright, Master,” he soothes, quiet, gentle as his mother used to be all those years ago. “It’s alright. Don’t cry for me.”

“Master— please, don’t cry for my life. I gave it up willingly, for you and Ahsoka and Padme, and everyone—“ Anakin has tears beginning to run down his face now, too, but he continues. “Master, you don’t have to be sad. I would do this a thousand times, in a thousand different ways. Don’t cry for me. I’d give my life a thousand times, just for you to live.”

It’s—  _ painful, cathartic, _ to split himself down to the bone like that. He’s never said it before— never could, his emotions a wildfire, the lock on the box too hot to touch, burning his hands at the approach— but now, with only a matter of days remaining, the embers dying down, he picked the luck. There’s some comfort to be taken in the inevitable; after all, he measures his life in hours, now, instead of years or days.

Obi-Wan— he just  looks at Anakin, then, and the look on is face is pure anguish. He says nothing, just— wraps his arms around himself where he sits on the floor, Anakin mirroring the movement. They both, more than anything, wish in this moment that the energy field could break, could bend. That Obi-Wan could join Anakin in the cell, or Anakin could join Obi-wan out of it.

“My reckless, foolhardy Padawan,” Obi-Wan murmurs, after an eternity. “You couldn’t wait, couldn’t slow down for your old Master to catch up with you.”

“I won’t waste your life, Anakin. But more than anything, I wish you would have waited just days more, so that when the time came, I could have fought with you. It’s selfish, I know— but I do think, that to die rather than to live without you would be the less painful choice.”

In these precious seconds, Anakin maps the lines of his Master’s face. He knows the shape of it by heart, knows every facet. The grey at his temples, the exact shade blue of his eyes, the slant of his cheekbones under his skin. Still, though, he  _ looks _ . He wants to remember this face every minute of every day, for all the days he has left.

There’s a secret on his lips, so pungent he can taste it. Its scent— the desert at sunrise, the rot of infection and flesh with death’s jaws sunk  _ deep _ . Blood on sand, a Tatooine sunrise and the breeze that comes with it, and—

He can’t say it. He  _ can’t _ . Wants to, oh-so-badly, but the words stick in his throat, emerge incomprehensible sobs and syllables. He can’t crack open this last lock, can’t speak the last truth. Can’t give himself the last catharsis, leave the secret to the air, so—

Anakin smiles, through his tears. Through swimming eyes, the haze of red, meets his Master’s gaze, and murmurs—

“You’ve got to let me go, Master. You’ve got to let me go.”

Dissolves into a fresh wave of quiet sobs.

And his Master, barred from him by law and energy, wishes for nothing more than to hold his Padawan as he tries to hold back from the same.

This is Obi-Wan Kenobi. Jedi Master, the Negotiator. A man revered and loved by many, admired by all. He is the man the galaxy looks to when there is a crisis— he is the Jedi held up as a gold standard to younglings, that they might emulate his resolve and precision.

Right now, all he wants is to hold the other half of his soul as he cries, one last time.

This is Anakin Skywalker. Jedi Knight; the Hero With no Fear. A man known for courage, skill, daring. He is the best of his generation, perhaps any generation. He is the face of the Republic— he is the name whispered by schoolchildren. His name will echo through history as a selfless hero, a martyr for the light.

Right now, all he wants is to open his heart fully to the man who has raised him, and to be held; to be safe for the last time.

Though this is the end of the age of heroes, it has saved its best for last.

But name me one hero who died happily.

_“Your sentence—“_

Mace slips out of meditation some hours later to the sight of a, slightly disheveled, Obi-Wan Kenobi.

“Mace,” he says. His voice is hoarse. There are tear tracks on his face. In the cell behind him, Anakin sleeps clumped against the wall, matching stains on his cheeks. Mace doesn’t say anything.

It would be unfair, to point out and prod at vulnerability when his friend is trying so hard to present a composed front.

“Obi-Wan,” he returns.

“Mace, I—“ he trails off. “Thank you,” he says, “for everything.”

“You have always been a great friend to me, Mace, and a valuable ally and mentor. I can only thank you for all you have done for me,” Obi-Wan bows. “I am sorry I cannot do more for you, Mace. Just—“ his voice breaks, for a second. Mace obligingly gives him a moment to compose himself once more. “Thank you,” he whispers, and bows. “For everything.”

It’s all they can manage, really, both drained and exhausted, though neither willing to abandon the company of the other just yet.

“Meditate with me,” Mace offers. He just did, but— joint meditation has always been a shared pastime of theirs. To pass the time with Obi-Wan on the last occasion he will see him—

For Mace, this peaceful memory will be enough. For Obi-Wan, emotionally ravaged from his conversation with Anakin, it will be sufficient.

“How much time do we have left?” Mace asks, and— he can almost imagine they’re back in the Temple, trying to fit in meditation before a meeting, on a time crunch.

Obi-Wan looks as if he is thinking much the same. “Two hours,” he says. “Shall we start?”

“After you, Master Kenobi.”

When Obi-Wan finally leaves, Mace is content with his final recollection of their friendship; the sense-memory of stone under him, and a lingering feeling of companionable peace, _silence_.

Anakin has nightmares almost every night, now, and tonight is no exception.

He wakes up with a choked-off scream—

Mace turns to the source of the sound, concerned—

Except this time, Anakin isn’t silent. Looks straight at Mace, and like it physically hurts to do so, chokes out a single word.

“ _ Tatooine _ ,” he gasps, all breath and horror. “Master Windu— my dreams,” he spits the words like they’re suffocating him. “They’re— it’s Tatooine.”

And like a shatterpoint, the tension that has risen in the air over course of restless night after restless night crests, peaks— and dissipates with the choice as it is made, leaving behind only an echo of jungle-warmth in nighttime-cold air.

“Anakin,” Mace begins, soft— and even though he cannot feel the Force, his own instincts lay a thick layer of foreboding next to his skin, “what happened on Tatooine?”

Anakin looks down, eyes still haunted, and just for a second, the shadows around him take the shape of trees—

Then as he looks up, the mirage is gone just as fast as it appeared.

Anakin Skywalker looks down, looks back up once more. 

He has a story to tell.

Anakin Skywalker opens his mouth, and out the desert pours.

Mace can only listen,  _ horrified _ , and allow the sand to choke him.

When the story is over—

Mace exhales, and his breath is so hot against the night as to be desert air.

Anakin is looking at the duracrete floor, and— he looks the same as he ever did, ever will. But knowing that— it is difficult to not consider him in a different light. Still, he seems— lighter.

It’s understandable, even though every instinct tells him he doesn’t want to understand. Something like that settled in his bones, dragging him down— Mace can feel the weight of it even now.

Still, Mace hasn’t spent a lifetime building different instincts—  the instincts of a _Jedi_ — for nothing.

“Do you regret it?” Mace asks, soft. Meets Anakin’s gaze when he looks up, and says again, still soft but sharper, _stronger_ , “do you regret what you did?”

Anakin looks down once more. He does that a lot, Mace has noticed. It’s an idiosyncrasy that Master Secura shares; perhaps a remnant of a slave upbringing that remains, vestigial, despite years out of that environment.

The silence between them is weighted, waiting. Then—

Anakin breaks it. “Yes,” he whispers. “I regret what I did,” his voice wavers, “but not as much as I should.” Here his voice breaks, and— what he did was awful. But— here, now, as they count the days until they die, Mace cannot help but think—

Already, Anakin is being held accountable. He holds himself so, and— would it help anyone, to drag this wrongdoing into the light? Would it bring anyone peace, or merely plunge the galaxy into greater turmoil as what it thinks of as a pillar of light is torn away?

After all, they already both face the death penalty.

More than that, the worst thing—

The worst thing is that Mace  _ understands _ , to a extent. Understands the anger. Remembers the darkness in the jungle.

Years ago, he stood in the forests of Haruun Kal and faced his _dôshalo_ , and— he saw himself reflected, then.

Sees it now, too.

Bloodthirst, anger, violence— these are all things Mace controls in himself. All things Kat Vastor allowed to grow, consume him from the inside until he was just— a husk, hollow,  _ visceral _ in his pain and rage. All things Anakin allowed to run free and tear that night in the desert, all sinking their teeth into innocent flesh as an act of vengeance.

Mace left his demons behind, just the darkness in the jungle. But— Anakin’s demons do not dwell there.

They are in the heat of a desert night, the scent of blood boiling on sand.

Stifling heat, a sandstorm stripping humanity away, and the scream of a Krayt in the dunes, and—

Just for a moment, Mace can hear the hum of fever-wasps again, and below it a murmur of a half-familiar voice.

What Anakin did— it’s indefensible. Tusken,  _ Balawai _ , clone— nothing deserves such a fate. Life is  _ precious _ , something to be _defended_.

But—

“I won’t tell anyone,” Mace finally allows. “After all, you already face justice for one crime. This can be just another reason for the sentencing.” He doesn’t look at Anakin as he says it.

“I can’t offer you absolution for what you did, the atrocity you committed. I never will be able to,” he says. “I can’t forgive you for this. Nothing ever could. But that you shared the truth, and let go of the memory— I believe it may have helped?” He looks at Anakin, now, who nods slowly.

“It does help, Master Windu,” Anakin says. “It’s weighed me down for so long— that somebody  _ knows _ , now—“

“—call me Mace,” he sighs. “After all, after telling me that, I think you may as well. And it’s not as if it will matter for long, will it?”

A humourless chuckle. “I suppose not,” Anakin allows, and then lays down. He doesn’t close his eyes.

They both lay awake, silent, for the remainder of the night.

_ He doesn’t have to speak or persuade, just— stand here, now, and breathe. _

_ “Your sentence—“ _

“ _ Mace _ .”

It’s the night before the trial. Mace was asleep, was woken up, and—

Neyo is outside his cell.

_Neyo_.

He’s on his feet before he even fully registers the commander’s presence. Not his commander, not any more— not since his official expulsion from the Order.

“Neyo,” he returns, and can’t bring himself to regret the way his voice wavers ever-so-slightly at the sight of the man he served beside for years, now not clothed in armour but the plain grey of a bridge uniform, the tattoo on his face illuminated by the dim lights of night-cycle.

“Wolffe and Fox helped me sneak in,” Neyo says. “Mace—“ his face remains impassive even as his voice briefly adopts a strangled note, but Mace doesn’t miss the twitch of his dominant hand towards the energy field.

“I know,” he murmurs. “I know.”

“I’d thought we could wait,” Neyo murmurs, “until after the war, but—“

“We both did,” Mace’s voice is an equally-quiet rumble in the still air. “We both thought we could. Neyo,” and just saying the name like this, quiet and private, is a relief.

“Mace,” Neyo says again, helpless, and—

Mace can’t touch him. Won’t ever know how his skin feels, most likely, and it seems the cruellest feeling in the universe, right now. But—

He can’t help himself as he holds a hand up to the energy field, just inches from the red light, and as its position is matched on the other side, leans down towards Neyo’s level. Closes his eyes.

They can’t even  _touch each other_ , but—

When he opens them, both of their hands have dropped vertically, hang with palms facing as if to emulate contact— but their foreheads hover inches apart, in a facsimile of Keldabe.

This is all they will ever have. But Neyo will live, and he will have happiness, and—

That’s all Mace could ever want, for him.

“Mace—“ Neyo says again, dark eyes almost pleading.

“I know,” Mace says again, and then as dark eyes rove over his face, drinking in the details, he adds, softly— _“_ _ I will always be with you .” _

They stand outside the Senate hall, Anakin on Mace’s right, and—

As he stares upwards, to the apex of the arched door, Anakin’s thoughts fly elsewhere in the galaxy, far from the cage he has been trapped in these past days.

He thinks of Ahsoka. Hopes, beyond all reason— that she will be okay. That this won’t hurt her too much.

That she will survive, and continue to thrive, in the new galaxy.

“Anakin.”

He looks over at Mace, meets his steady gaze.

“Your Padawan will be fine,” he promises, and the words fill Anakin with a rush of faith, agreement.

“Thank you, Mace,” he murmurs, barely audible, before fixing his posture at the sound of the lock, and the rumble of voices beyond. “You’re right. She will be.”

All he can do— inhale, exhale. Remain calm, in the face of this. Even through the binders on both their wrists, he remembers the mantra.

_I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me._

Anakin takes a breath—

And the doors open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we’re here.
> 
> the line “though this is the end of the age of heroes, it has saved its best for last” is taken from Matthew Stover’s Revenge of the Sith novelisation. obviously, I don’t own the novel— I took the line for emphasis.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “And the stars watched their son, and they were proud even as they wept for him. Because he had done better, given more, than they ever could have expected.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cliffhanger warning for the end of this chapter.

On Tatooine, Anakin Skywalker knows, the sky is blue. Some awful shade of cobalt to sear eyes and eyelids; the very same colour that lives in his eyes, the midday horizon of a desert sky.

On Coruscant, the sky is clouded, a vague mix of greys. Exhaust fumes cloud the air, block out the sun and stars save vague impressions, and—

It was always his least favourite part of the planet, that lack. That loneliness.

Now, he looks to the ceiling; looks to where the sky would be, where stone blots out the traffic-light stars.

Feels the warmth of another next to him, the weight of those same stars Mace Windu’s own burden— as it has been, for so many years.

As it would have been, for so many more.

When he was young, a mere boy drenched in sand and sunlight, threads of the Force tugging him in every direction, his mother had told him a story.

  
  
  


Mace Windu feels the weight of eons, now. Those far behind, and far ahead; they all gaze upon these hours, this day.

The heavy binders around his wrists dull his senses, a chasm between him and the Force, but broken connections do not matter. He is more than these severed threads, these fraying edges, no matter how the shadows that lap at his vision wish it so.

Every footstep is along a path he has walked many times before. He knows this dance by heart.

The Force is the prickling of the back of your neck; it is the raising of hairs on skin, yes, and the heavy realisation of  _ danger _ . But—

Instinct plays a part, too, and Mace Windu has spent too many years among these stars called people to not realise what a shatterpoint feels like.

Ahead of him awaits the convergence of threads, the strings of Fate knotted into his and Anakin’s ends, and—

Maybe it is the Force, unheeded, slithering through the metal chain, that brushes the nape of his neck.

But Mace Windu knows things for what they are. A blessing, a curse, fit for legends— and he would not call himself such. But he hears the whispers that follow him.

He feels the breath of Atropos on the space above his collar— and knows by heavy heart the sensation of her metal blades as they rest on delicate skin.

  
  
  


They stand. It’s all they have left, really. This action, to remain steadfast; to not waver, with the eyes of every remaining Jedi on them.

Every sibling, every child and parent of theirs knows their innocence, like duracrete in bone. Knowledge’s heavy weight, made heavier by disbelief, by the stares of every civilian who bought into the propaganda.

So—

They stand. They make a stand.

The true purpose of Jedi, really— to stand against the dark. Stare down the monsters. Even facing their own deaths, they will do this.

Mace knows—

They have to.

He would gladly sacrifice his own life— he has had so much already. The only rebellion in his blood is borne of the man, the general, the boy, really, standing next to him.

Anakin Skywalker had so much life left to live, and yet he remains slated to die alongside Mace.

It’s the right decision. This path is drenched in light, stars shining through the cracks in the galaxy’s fate, brittle as it is—

Beside him, Anakin is looking at the ceiling. His face shines, something glassy sliding down his cheeks. His face is peaceful, though.

He doesn’t realise he is crying. Mace will leave it that way.

The Republic is a funny thing; a kingdom built on matchsticks of democracy, really, and the war has chiselled foundation away so patiently, so slowly—

So slowly, that nobody noticed until the galaxy itself hung in the balance. 

Mace Windu feels the stares of every Jedi to come, every soul to follow him on his back.

He walks away from them. Walks away from that future. It is light, and bright— it is hopeful.

It is not his to hold.

Mace Windu walks towards faces he knows. Every Jedi yet to come watches him— watches them, as they walk this path they forged with the sweep of blue blade, purple blade—

_ —white lightning— _

Every Jedi already gone stands before them as they stand side by side. Their arms are already spread wide in welcome.

  
  
  


Shmi Skywalker had stroked his hair as he lay in his bed, every movement of her hand knocking sand out from between the strands.

Night in the desert is cold, always cold—

He had snuggled down further, and asked for a story.

Her eyes had fixed, just for a second, on the windowsill behind him; he had picked the sand-flowers for her, and they stood in a jug behind him. She had said—

Once there was a man, stronger than any other in body and spirit, and he lived his life in bright moments, full of light, a lens through which every sun shined.

Unknown to him, he had been slated by the stars to carry the heaviest burden of all.

“And he was a Jedi, you said,” Anakin had chirped. “One of the best Jedi to ever live.”

“Yes,” she’d laughed; a small, private thing that rang like a bell in the silent night air. “Yes, he was a Jedi.”

“Whoa,” Anakin had whispered, burrowing even further under his blanket. Even then, the word Jedi, the idea of such a thing— it made him dream of a future so bright it was blinding. Even then, he hoped— in the way only the very young can— for a better life, a dream come true. Shmi could see it in his eyes, that flame that no amount of sand or cold could stifle.

She was sure she had nursed the same flame, once upon a time.

She was sure her dreams no longer stretched towards those same stars.

“This man,” she said, “this Jedi, Anakin— he was the best of his time.”

“The very best? Really?” 

“Yes, really. He was the fiercest fighter, the most courageous warrior, the wisest scholar, of all his brothers and sisters. But also— and this is most important of all— of all the people in the galaxy, Anakin, he was the most compassionate. His kindness shone from him like the suns in the sky.”

“Like our suns? Really?”

“Yes, like ours. Always like ours.”

“Whoa.”

Then he had paused. Continued, “but you said the stars had a destiny for him? That he’d have to carry it?”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, he had a destiny to carry, just as all of us must carry our own destinies, from birth to deathbed and back.”

“And his, Anakin, was the heaviest of all. For the stars looked down upon him, this Jedi, the bravest and most compassionate of any soul in the galaxy, and they decided he would have a journey to make. For these were dark times, Anakin, and the Jedi’s compassion was so strong as to be a beacon.”

“He was the brightest star,” Anakin had whispered. “Like what you call me, sometimes.”

Shmi had smiled, a small sad thing.

“Yes, Ani,” she’d said. “He was the brightest star of any sky, just like you.”

  
  
  


The glare of the lights is almost like the stars, if those same stars in reality had never known warmth or kindness. They shine over Anakin, over Mace, something harsh and bright in the light as it shakes every flaw free of skin and spirit, drags them up into the air for examination.

Still, there is some relief, even as they are scrutinised. Even with the space around them, the cavernous floor of the chamber, neither Anakin nor Mace is alone.

Light shines down upon them, blinding, an ghastly image of heaven projected, and—

They’re side by side.

“You stand before the court today,” the voice echoes into the shadowed corners of the room— every wall round, designed in every crevice to reflect light, but even this room has been infected by darkness, these days.

Just as the Republic itself has withered, held together by the Force and hope.

Hope in human form, armoured in white plastisteel and paintwork. Clothed in robe and cloak, pressed linen; their only protection the Force, and the soldiers who love them. Who follow them still, even after all these years of war and death.

Anakin Skywalker takes a breath, and knows: if the price of that hope is his own life, then he will gladly pay.

And if he dies beside Mace Windu, well—

Only a week ago, he would have despised the idea.

He always figured that when he died, he’d be standing beside Obi-Wan.

But he looks to the man beside him, and—

At the end of it all, the people he loves are safe, even if he must leave them.

At the end of it all, for him, there will be no greater honour than to die alongside Mace Windu.

  
  
  


Ahsoka Tano _runs._

Every step is a moment slipping away, lost to the ether and _time,_ but—

Time is something that they do not have, she thinks, and grits her teeth. Runs faster, harder. Every impact is jaw-rattling with its force, but she does not think to lighten her gait, does not stop to consider how her heels and ankles ache with a pain that is quickly bone-deep, though feels far more shallow than the stabs of fear that plague her, grip her heart at the thought of Anakin, at the Senate’s mercy and undoubtedly a guilty man.

If she let her thoughts, her feelings, dwell; even for a second; all would be lost, she knows. There is no room or time for thought, here, only breath and footfalls and the warmth of Rex at her side, the holo-projector in her left hand.

They could not convince Maul to run. It would be too dangerous, would run the risk of his escape too close for comfort. This, she knows— she  _ hopes _ , and isn’t that the most dangerous thing of all, the golden spark against wounds terror has formed in her heart that feels like home, and warmth, and Anakin— she knows, the certainty something hot and devoted in a way that is sharp, drawing blood like a promise where metal bites into her palm; it will be enough to stall until Maul can give testimony.

Ahsoka tells herself that she knows.

There is no other option; she knows, _she knows—_

Either it is enough, or Anakin Skywalker will die. Mace Windu will die.

They are innocent men; they are good Jedi.

Ahsoka will just have to be enough.

  
  
  


Anakin’s hands are shaking, Mace notices from the corner of his eye. Beside him, energy thrums through nerves and muscles, lightning in every vein.

Nervousness, Mace realises. Anxiety, under the scrutiny of every eye in the galaxy, the baleful gaze of the Senate.

Maybe if he had been a younger man, he would have raged at the injustice of it all, the fear and anger projected like a spotlight over their heads. As it is- he knows this is more necessary than youth would have made it seem.

No matter how noble their actions were, the blood that sullies their hands is the same. The Sith were for so long just stories, unhappy legends of a far more chaotic time, and Palpatine a mere man, grown old and tired and wan in his efforts to end the war.

It weighs heavy on Mace’s shoulders, all of it. The war, the death, the shadows that for so long have gripped the galaxy— 

He feels every second of it, placed on his shoulders by endless planets of vengeful souls.

Mace feels it, knows what is written on every face around them, and—

Anakin’s hands are shaking.

As Master of the Order, Mace has worked with countless Jedi; given them reassurance, direction, when before they had none.

He remembers Prosset Dibs; remembers so many more. Each and every one of them was family, and—

No matter what Anakin’s options were, in that moment where he made the fateful decision, and swung to kill the sith, Mace will always honour the responsibility to guide him.

So he reaches out; his elbow makes contact with Anakin's arm, lightly, even as the overseeing judge reads out the overture to their trial.

Blue eyes widen; the brush is returned.

Anakin is listening, even with the undercurrent of tension that threads through him, low-lying and colder than Hoth in his fingertips.

Mace looks slowly towards him, meets wide, terrified eyes, as before them the judge’s timbre fills the air with an assumption of guilt.

“Be calm,” he whispers.

“The accusation,” the judge calls into the room, each word an endless echo, “is treason of the highest order. The unlawful arrest, and later murder, of the Republic’s Supreme Chancellor, Sheev Palpatine.”

Her words fill the space, and around them, the voices of the Senate rise in a cresting wave— ten thousand voices roaring in unity their approval, united for the first time since the beginning of the war.

  
  
  


The Senate  _ roars. _

Obi-Wan Kenobi watches from the balcony. Even surrounded by his fellow Jedi, bolstered by their silent support, he cannot keep back his tears.

Because-

He is a Jedi. He is a Master, above all, a teacher, and down there-

Down there is the boy he swore to protect and guide above all else, about to give his life for the Republic. About to give his life for Obi-Wan, it feels like, and the inevitability has something crushing to it.

_ He watches, and the room’s cavernous floor is in some moments luminous red, an impassable barrier of light- _

After all, he couldn’t save Qui-Gon either.

_ -as his own teacher, the man who’s taught him so much, falls with a lightsaber in his gut, but it is just the reflection of the Senate Guard’s blade- _

Obi-Wan Kenobi watches history repeat itself. Watches his student take the blame, watches his brother in arms take the blow.

If he could, he would do as he has so many times on a battlefield, to stretch out and take the blow with faith that he would survive it; and, failing that, that his death would buy the lives of those he loves.

_ Infinite sadness, indeed. _

Qui-Gon had once said that to watch all that you love die for you was the truest suffering.

He had said it, and it had been true; and so it has been in the life of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

More than anything, he wants to save Mace. Wants to save Anakin: wants to take their place on the stand, wants them to live with everything he has.

But-

Those are not his decisions to make. Their lives are not his gifts to give.

His presence as a silent witness is all he can offer them.

_ Let it be enough, _ he thinks.  _ Please, let it be enough. _

  
  
  


This is what the Jedi teach their younglings:

Faith is the strongest weapon that any person can wield.

It is the most powerful blade a Jedi can hold, and as Ahsoka Tano runs, she feels the weight of those words. The truth is like lead in the hilts of her lightsabers, the projector in her hand, and despite the weight and the burden of hope that she carries, she runs.

She just runs, and hopes against hope that she can be fast— that her speed can be enough, today.

She is so, so afraid that it may not. The thought— the reminder, of the blade that seems to press under her lek, parting skin at the back of her neck, the hot blood below the skin not hers, but Anakin’s.

Because here is the truth—

If she fails today, it will not be her that pays the price.

It will be Anakin. It will be Mace Windu.

Both innocent, and their lives depend on her flight through these corridors, the seconds that pass.

Faith, she thinks. She has to have faith, has to believe that she is fast, that this will be enough. There is no other option—

_ —a Jedi’s duty is to face down monsters, but the scariest monsters wear human skin and make you a crusader against innocents— _

_ —she didn’t even notice, no Togruta senses letting her smell the evil as it rotted, how could she ever call herself a Jedi— _

_ —she didn’t even see the monster— _

_ —right now, _ Ahsoka Tano is more terrified than she’s ever been.

Though she may not believe she is worthy of the title Jedi, worthy even of the Force as it lends flight and energy to her footsteps, right now she has to believe that she is.

Faith is the strongest weapon, but it is also the heaviest, and without the Force— _ without Anakin,  _ her traitorous mind whispers,  _ because he was and is your teacher, for so long he guided you and he does so still— _ Ahsoka’s shoulders might just break under the strain.

Without Master Windu, without Anakin– she thinks her resolve might break her, too.

  
  
  


“Where did he go, then? The Jedi?”

Shmi had smiled. “If you had to travel a whole galaxy, where would you start, Ani?”

He’d looked up at her. “Tatooine, of course!”

“And why would you start there?”

“Because it’s  _ home _ ,” he’s said, quiet. “Even if it’s not very nice, sometimes.”

That was her Ani. Always devoted to here, to home. To making it better for the people he loved, even when it wasn’t his burden to carry.

“Well,” she said. “This Jedi did the same thing. When it came time for him to start his own journey, he started at home.”

“At Coruscant? That’s where all the Jedi live.”

Shmi laughed softly. “Not quite, Ani. This was quite a long time ago, before the Coruscant Temple became where every Jedi lived. This particular Jedi lived somewhere quite special; he lived in the First Jedi Temple, on a planet that can only be found by those who need it.”

“Whoa,” Anakin’s eyes had shone with every light in the galaxy, and again Shmi had smiled at the sight. Her son, whose heart could hold every star. Whose eyes would watch over every soul in the galaxy as an extension of the Force that so many religious men and women, passing through Tatooine on their way to greater things, had spoken of.

“Do you think I could ever go there, mom?”

“Yes, Ani,” she’d laughed. “I’m sure you will. Someday.”

“Someday,” he’d sighed, and settled back, eyes glowing with the dreams he held there.

“Where did he go first, after he left home?”

“We don’t know,” she said, and smiled at Anakin’s disgruntled look. “We don’t! It was a very long time ago. But we do know,” she said, poking at her son’s nose and laughing at the way he wrinkled it, “that not long after he left, he arrived on Dantooine.”

“It was on Dantooine that the true nature of his quest was revealed to him, you see.”

Anakin looked at her, sleepy eyes inquisitive. She wondered if he’d even remember this the next morning. “What was that, mom?”

She smiled.

“When the Jedi was born, the Force looked on him kindly, and saw that the stars would have a heavy destiny for him. And so, it gave him a special gift beside those he would cultivate otherwise.”

“It gave him the ability to match the light of the stars, and pay it back in kind.”

“Whoa,” Anakin had whispered.

“Yes, whoa,” Shmi said. “And when the Jedi arrived on Dantooine, he saw not the bright desert and red sand he had been told of. Instead, he was greeted by darkness. The people of Dantooine had not seen a Jedi in a long time; and they had forgotten their compassion, you see.”

“What do you mean?”

Shmi lowered her voice. “When the Jedi arrived in the spaceport, the first thing he saw was a young child being dragged away for stealing food. When he looked around, he saw that not even one passerby was watching; they had all turned their eyes away from the child as they were punished for trying to survive.”

Anakin looked down. “Oh,” he whispered.

“They weren’t showing compassion,” Shmi said. “And so that night, the Jedi stood up, and went to the gaol; and under the moon’s watchful eye, he set free every child imprisoned there, and led them out into the starlight.”

She saw Anakin’s eyes dart to the darkened window, like he almost expected to see a row of figures travelling across the sand in single file, starlight falling on their shoulders.

Perhaps he did. She had known for a long time that he saw things nobody else did, sometimes.

“And,” Shmi said, “as they walked through the spaceport, people heard the footsteps and watched.

“Anyone who was watching would swear for years afterwards that as they walked, a star fell from the Jedi’s hands into the soil, and as the children continued to walk, flowers bloomed in every one of their footsteps. These flowers glowed, and illuminated the path. And though the Jedi left that night, when the people of Dantooine woke in the morning, they found that the planet itself was brighter. Every time someone saw the flowers, they would be reminded of the Jedi’s compassion, and they would go on to show compassion themself. And so, the darkness over Dantooine was lifted, and the Jedi moved on, one star less heavy than before.”

“And that is how the story goes. For every planet the Jedi visited, every person he brought light to, he had to sacrifice a piece of himself- something he did without quarrel or even a second thought. But over the years, as the planets behind him grew in number, he became more and more insubstantial, slowly losing pieces of himself.”

Anakin’s eyes widened. “He was dying?” He whispered, horrified. Shmi nodded solemnly.

“And so it came that one day, when the Jedi was barely more than a whisper on the breeze, he arrived on Tatooine.”

  
  
  


Anakin wonders what his mother would do, and as he does- the image of Shmi Skywalker fills his head.

“You can’t stop change any more than you can stop the suns from setting, Ani,” she says. “You cannot stop this,” she gestures to the room, to every senator raising their voice, and he knows it’s true.

But, oh, how he wishes he could change fate, just for a second, and touch happiness like the warmth of bringing Obi-Wan’s teacup to him, scalding heat through fine bone china. Like the roughness of Ahsoka’s tunics beneath the palm of his hand as he clapped her shoulder, encouraging. Like the dig of Rex’s armour into his bicep with every affectionate punch.

As Bail Organa raises his voice, calling for peace, for the ending of death– his voice ringing as he reminds the room of Palpatine’s emergency powers, the threat he had posed to democracy, Anakin thinks–  _ like Padm _ _ é’s hands curving around his, pushing a metal band onto his finger, and the warmth of golden sunlight like a halo around them both on their wedding day. _

Republic law forbids her from taking part in the legal proceedings as the perceived prot égé of the victim – legislation from centuries ago, following a stain on the Republic courts– but looking up; she stands beside Mas Amedda, face impassive. Eyes dark, grieving. The Senator from Rodia calls for a return to law in these new times, a solid foundation upon which to build peace. A reminder, that as the Separatist armies committed crimes– so did the Republic. Slave armies, and alliances with the Hutts.

“There is a wish, across the many systems of the Republic,” they say, “for all to go back to normal. But I deny that such a thing would be good for the galaxy. Instead, I beg the honourable representatives to see this Separatist crisis as what it is– a cry from a galaxy fractured by injustice. We must learn from this experience, and rebuild the Republic as a new entity– more united, and more democratic, than before.”

“But this must come from a strong resolve to  _ do better _ . No matter their nobility in character or intention, the Jedi Generals Anakin Skywalker and Mace Windu are undoubtedly guilty. To grant them absolution would be to rot the first brick before it is even laid in mortar, and the very Republic would rot from the inside out.”

Anakin’s eyes stay with Padm é.

He wishes he could tell her-  _ don’t grieve for too long. Please, be happy. I will be alright. _

He can’t. It’s just how the world works, sometimes.

But when the sun sets alight the western sand-

She knows he loves her. That will have to be enough.

The accusing faces of ten thousand systems bear down on him, but he stands. Stares up at Padm é, and knows that it will be okay. She will be okay, and Obi-Wan, Rex, Ahsoka; they will be, too, in turn.

For now, he will weather the stares of the Republic, and he will stand his ground. He will let his death build the next era’s foundations.

“We should rebuild the Republic based on mercy,” Bail Organa says– pleads, and the last word hangs in the air like the last, dying star.

“And we will,” the Senator from Rodia says. Their eyes reflect every light in the room– entire galaxies unto their own. As if through fog, Anakin feels the light touch on his mind, like the final, ghastly crack of glass before it breaks– this is the moment that shapes the future. This is the moment that decides his fate.

Joints locked against failing, falling- this is the hardest part of it all, keeping his head held high.

“But to grant guilty men mercy would be to smother the soul of the Republic. Their intentions were pure, the honourable Representatives will observe– but intentions do not mask actions, and the actions of these men were ones of treason and murder. No matter how pure their hearts, there is blood on their hands.”

But his mother did it, once, at the auction, in the desert, every day of her life- and he will too.

Anakin Skywalker has never been anything other than Shmi Skywalker’s son.

“Not like this,” Bail Organa says, soft. “Never like this.”

He knows, he knows, they have to face this.

“I propose incarceration,” the Senator from Rodia says. “A life sentence.”

It doesn’t make it any easier.

“No,” a new voice says. Anakin looks up to meet the face of the Umbaran Senator, and knows– this is the moment. The overbalancing of the scales.

“An honourable sentiment,” Mee Deechi says. “But these men have committed treason. I do not believe that incarceration could be enough to serve justice, in this case.”

Shmi Skywalker taught him many things, and Obi-Wan Kenobi taught him even more, and through all of that-

Neither of them ever taught him to run away.

  
  
  


They’re getting closer and closer with every step, and with every heartbeat Ahsoka adds another layer of steel to her spine. She will not back down today; not when lives are on the line. Not when her master’s life is on the line.

She does not allow herself to consider that lives still may be lost today. Sometimes, it is possible to do everything right, and still fail.

She does not allow herself to think that this, perhaps, could be one of those days.

If she cannot even save the people who deserve it, the people she loves, how could she ever be worthy of the title Jedi?

Even thinking it feels like treason, feels like a betrayal of the lives she is sworn to save.

If the words crossed her tongue, would they cling like a magic spell? Would to speak it be to wish it into being?

She will not.

She does not have time for this.

Ahsoka Tano  _ runs. _

On many planets, she is known for her heroism; to many Padawans, she knows, her name is a mantra– a measuring stick, an aspiration. The learner, the ex-Padawan of the Chosen One, for whom the Masters still wish safety, growth, light, in their meditations.

Every one of those wishes is clutched in her fist, now. All the light she can muster; every good thought gifted to her over the years. They have guided her, and they will guide her, now.

Her faith gives her feet their flight; her resolve is what bolstered Rex, beside her, to see out the end of this fight.

Saving lives is the purpose that runs through every Jedi’s veins, and though she left, the Force still looks upon her kindly, a favoured child. Every heartbeat brings her closer as her footsteps echo through bone and montral, and in those same bones she feels the warmth of family approaching, long-lost siblings and friends welcoming her back into their ranks.

There is no judgement. No expectation, from them. Even with their gazes fixed on Mace and Anakin as both face death, there is a sense of warmth.

All they know is that she is here, and they thank her for it.

Ahsoka is not here to pay her respects.

She is here to defy fate, to save lives, as a Jedi should–

And she  _ will not fail today. _

  
  
  


Depa Billaba has lived a long life. She has carried many burdens; she has endured countless trials.

Nothing has ever hurt as much as watching her Master face death, without her by his side.

But she has endured; and she will so, again.

Hundreds of metres below, Mace stands– his arms cuffed behind his back, his spine straight, every muscle in his body reading serenity in the perfect model of a Jedi: but Depa knows him, perhaps the best of anyone here, was taught by him, and she knows that little shift onto the right leg, the rising of his shoulders with his chest when he takes the deepest breaths he can.

Depa cannot get the image of his discomfort out of her mind. 

She keeps her hand on Caleb’s shoulder; she will not allow him to fall, even with his balance as unsteady as it is right now. She will support him through this, just as Mace did for her, once.

Depa still remembers something of the jungle. She still remembers how, even when she believed herself too far lost to be redeemed, he came to find her. He brought her home.

She cannot do the same for him. But their people have come to him, instead. His home is the Temple; but his family have come to say goodbye.

Jedi do what they can to save lives. For those who sacrifice for the greater good, for their family who fight and die to see others live, they will do everything in their power to bring comfort.

The war is over: it does not seem right, that it shall claim yet more victims from beyond oblivion.

Yet still, it has; and her Master, the picture of selflessness as he never fails to be, took the hit for their people.

He taught her the foundations of what it meant to be a Jedi.

She could never be surprised, and perhaps that makes it hurt more, that in the end this is Mace all over.

Always trying to do the right thing. She knows how he hurt, bone-deep, after Geonosis.

Then, if the war had ended, her Master would have died.

Now, it has. 

It seems he will die anyway.

  
  
  


“The sentence, as proposed by the Senator for Umbara,” the judge reads out, “is execution by firing squad– to be carried out three mornings from now.”

Mace closes his eyes. It had been nice, to hope, but— this was still inevitable, in the end. 

He and Anakin were slated to die for the Republic from the start. Neither had fought against it.

No matter how you rail and battle against it, destiny always arrives to take its due.

Mace Windu feels the shadow of eternity pass over him, but he does not shiver at its chill.

At the end, everyone falls into mist and stories. Every soul takes its place in forever. He was never to be any different.

His lightsaber is purple, like justice, and— what a thing to die defending.

The Republic. Ten thousand systems, standing together, and it may be in tatters but he knows,  _ he knows— _

_ What a thing to die defending. _

The last, and most important, pillar of Korun culture is the Herd.

Once, Master Yoda had told him that despite his separation from his birth people, their planet–

Thoughts, words, prayers. A creed written by the lessons of a hundred generations, and every word of it written on his bones.

Protect that which will protect others, when you are gone. The individual perishes, but the group survives. And that, that is life.

Life– this galaxy, this universe, every star in the sky– life is worth defending.

Mace Windu does so; has done so, countless times. To do it again is no difficulty.

Even if he must die for it, this time.

He lifts his eyes to where Depa stands; meets her eyes, holding a glassy sheen, then Caleb’s, whose cheeks already shine dully with lingering moisture– tears, long since shed.

These two– the daughter he could never have. The grandson he has cherished every day.

More than anything, they will carry his legacy, and it rends his heart somewhat to see the breaking points it will create in them, an echo of a sob in an endless cavern.

A heavy shield to carry, Mace Windu’s legacy.

The weight will test them, he knows– but they are strong enough. They always will be strong enough, to carry such a thing– and one day, Mace Windu will just be a footnote in the story of Depa Billaba, a song to be sung by every star. 

Depa Billaba will be a note in Caleb’s story, too.

We are what we leave behind.

The Republic–  _ what a thing to die defending, _ Mace thinks.

His bones will be added to its foundations, with this.

Mace Windu meets the eyes of Commander Fox, behind his visor. Sees the grief there, and the resignation, and nods, once.

As much of a salute as he can give, to the man who owns only his own name. Who will have so much more, some day.

But for now, Mace looks to Depa, and Caleb, and Obi-Wan. Looks to Fox, and–

He will leave the galaxy in capable hands.

  
  
  


The judge gives the sentence.

Depa feels the tears fall; she makes no move to wipe them. She has spent these days grieving, and this is no different. Pain is nothing if not pervasive, and this will echo, she knows, into days to come.

That doesn’t mean she has to fall into its current and drown, though.

  
  
  


Obi-Wan’s shoulder’s slump, and as he sways on his feet he feels Luminara’s hand, her slender fingers, press between his shoulder blades to keep him upright; he feels Yoda’s wizened hand hold his own.

Both of them reach out to him, in the Force, shared grief and kindness mingling, and he is grateful.

He is always grateful.

  
  
  


Anakin–

He remembers his mother. Remembers the blood and the rage and the chill, that night in the desert, and–

Maybe as a younger man, he would have wished to be saved from this.

But that isn’t him, now.

That is not his path.

Still, the fear is visceral, _animal,_ at the words of the judge– and as he meets Obi-Wan’s desperate eyes from the pod far above, his shoulders begin to shake.

  
  
  


They are going to die, and Mace– he wants to meditate, wants to spar. Wants to leave the space he is locked into, in his head, cut off from the Force and the universe as if by an impenetrable fog.

But Anakin is here, and he is terrified.

So is Mace. Instinct, in a way that he masters; accepts, and allows to flow through him, but does not give into it.

They are together in this, so when Mace’s elbow brushes Anakin’s shaking arm, it’s not a chide.

It’s a ballast.

  
  
  


“When the Jedi arrived on Tatooine, he was little more than dust and willpower. But still, he came to help, because that is what Jedi do.”

“But there wasn’t much of him left,” Anakin said, anxious. “How could he help? He had so little left to give.”

Shmi smiled. It was something small, and sad.

“He came,” she said, “to the Krayt Dragon, and knelt at its feet. He asked what he could do, to help the people on Tatooine– for there was so little of him left, that though he wished to do all– to bring greenery to every crevice, food to every hungry soul, to free every person– he could do none of it.”

“What did the Krayt say?” Anakin asked, eyes wide.

Shmi brushed the hair from his brow and smiled.

“The Krayt Dragon opened its massive jaw, showing every tooth, and said:

_ “I know little of the needs and wants of the people. But I do know the planet, and every day it cries out, for so few plants can grow here. Barely anything can survive. So the desert weeps, because like any parent, it wishes to provide for its children. _

_ You have little left to give, and anything you do will be your end. So I ask: give the desert life. Something small, something that can survive no matter what. So that the people living here may know joy, even in the smallest ways– and so that the desert will smile a little more, and cry a little less.” _

“And, well– the Jedi had come to Tatooine to die. So he stood, and walked into the desert, with every star shining up above– and with every footstep, a single flower bloomed, its petals the same hue as the nighttime sands. And with every footstep, the Jedi let himself fall into the eternity of the wind, until only his robes were left, and a trail of flowers behind him.”

“And the stars watched their son, and they were proud even as they wept for him. Because he had done better, given more, than they ever could have expected.”

  
  


“Those flowers,” Shmi said, “they bloom everywhere across the desert, even today. And you have seen them before.” She motioned to the jug on the windowsill behind him, the blooms inside that Anakin had brought home for her.

“The sand-flowers,” her son whispered, awestruck.

“And that’s why they grow, Ani. The last light the Jedi had to give, he gave to us, so that the desert could know life, and the people here could know joy.”

“And he died?” Anakin was near sleep, eyes closing in between moments of wakefulness. Shmi smiled.

“Yes, Ani. He died for it. But his sacrifice was a beautiful thing, just as the flowers were beautiful. And every day, he is admired, just as the desert blooms are admired– because through his sacrifice, his gift, he lives on.”

Ahsoka runs, because the trial– she should have been there for the trial–

She has to save Master Mace’s, to save  _ Anakin’s _ , life–

_ Except the trial was three days ago. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess who's back


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Does that mean I shouldn’t pick the desert-flowers, then, if they’re the last gift of the Jedi?”

“Does that mean I shouldn’t pick the desert-flowers, then, if they’re the last gift of the Jedi?”

“Of course not, Ani,” Shmi said. “Because to bring them home brings you joy– and that is the purpose of the flowers.

“Legacies aren’t just meant to be beautiful. They’re meant to make people’s lives better– to bring them joy.”

  
  
  


–Ahsoka bursts into the courtyard, holoprojector in hand, eyes wide, just in time–

–and at the end, this is the tragedy of it all–

–and all she can see is the shock on Anakin’s face, the _pain,_ as the volley of shots punctures his gut–

–Anakin Skywalker is doomed to die.

Ahsoka Tano is doomed to _watch._

There is a moment, before. In the last second, Anakin meets Mace’s eyes, and smiles.

“Thank you, Master,” he says. In his mouth, the words taste like companionship, understanding.

Someone gives the order to fire.

There’s a flash. A burst of pain; to any soul who has lived their life in the dark, the briefest flash of light is a star going supernova.

Nobody knows what exactly it feels like to die until they do so.

Anakin Skywalker wakes, and cries out.

Anakin Skywalker, once upon a time, would have railed against destiny. Would have fought, to live– to drag these desperate breaths from the air like the grasp of the dying man in the desert, fingers sifting through the sand that swore to him it was an oasis.

The Anakin Skywalker of those moments when sunlight beamed down between bookended tragedies, when he was young and Obi-Wan, not yet so aged with grief but bright with the promise of a peaceful future would still smile and laugh, tugging on his Padawan braid in amusement–

The Anakin Skywalker of once-ago moments would have fought against this.

In this moment, he is just tired.

When the pistols fired, he closed his eyes. A final act of cowardice, the spectre of a dragon whispers, but he did not heed the voice. How could it matter, anyway?

To the man with minutes left to live, all seems small.

The universe itself is within his grasp, and soon he will touch forever.

Everything is dark, here. When he closed his eyes, he did not reopen them.

There is a sharp pain in his gut; the area around it burns, like a drawn-out scream, and his mind is drawn to the thought of _lava, Obi-Wan, betrayal_ before he ignores the thoughts.

They are just phantasms of a future that could have been. His life will buy, has bought a different one.

Aside from the mortal wound spilling down his front, he is warm. He thinks–

There are arms around him, he realises. Someone is holding him, their chest against his back, his torso cradled as if precious.

Above him, he hears sounds. Noise; words, muffled, as if from a distance. As if he is a child again, hiding under the blankets to avoid the awakening noises of morning.

Anakin Skywalker is warm, in all the ways he has never been since he first left Tatooine, all those years ago. In all the ways he has not been since he left the Temple for the last time, all of a week ago.

He opens his eyes. Looks up, past Ahsoka and Rex and Obi-Wan and Padmé, past every tortured face hovering until his eyes can fix on the morning sky, the blue– light, like air. Like freedom incarnate, the way that nature rips through all chains.

It’s beautiful, he realises. This planet, this galaxy, is beautiful. _Life_ is beautiful.

He doesn’t want to leave it all behind.

_He has to._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we go here we go
> 
> double update time


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The night before, Mace dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> epilogue.

The night before, Mace dreams.

Depa, her Padawan braid hanging from her shoulder, hugs him around his middle and drags him to the training salles. The whole way, her laughter follows them– warm, like summer rain. Like the smallest, most ephemeral moments of happiness.

Her smile feels like a sunset on his back, and Mace smiles back even as they spar, as green and purple clash over and over again in a dance unique to teacher and student.

He does not need to reach out to know the galaxy is at peace. When they take a break from their own spar, Mace feels a light tap on his presence in the Force; when he turns, Ahsoka Tano stands there in training robes, her own Master a few paces behind– and beside him, Obi-Wan Kenobi, face lighter than it has been in years.  
  


Her Padawan beads hang from her headdress; when she smiles at the banter behind her, turning to retort, they catch the light, and the half-formed impression of those beads torn asunder and held in gloved hand is dissipated by the glare.

“Could I spar against you, Master Windu?” She asks, and her irreverence is something light on the breeze, a piece of the Temple he would never wish against.

Mace nods; calls Anakin over, too, while Depa moves back to them. “We can make it a four-person match,” he says, even as Obi-Wan laughs and promises to swap in for Anakin when he inevitably messes up.

Depa is by his side, still young enough that he can stay beside her, can protect her, and somewhere he dreads the day he will have to let her go, even as he cannot wait to see what she will become.

He looks forward to the day he becomes little but a footnote in the stories they will tell of his Padawan.

The fight is, again, like a dance; the atmosphere is without weight, laughter traded as much as the sparring blows.

There is something strange, light and effervescent in the air. Every window in the salle is open, spilling in the light blue light of an unpolluted dawn, and something deep inside Mace whispers, sadly, that _this can not be true. This is not reality; we know it._

_A dream,_ that voice whispers, indistinct. Something yet deeper tells him that if he wakes up, he will never come back here again.

Maybe he is getting old, he thinks.

He wants to stay here for as long as he can, in this warmth, this comfort. This place where all is not as it is, but as it should be.

The Force is silent. He has nowhere to be–

Face illuminated by green light, Depa grins at him. Her smile has been the leitmotif to his happiness from the very beginning.

Mace Windu allows himself to stay.

She was too late.

_She was too late._

Ahsoka Tano does not notice how she cries out and runs to her Master until she falls to her knees beside his body with a thud. The sound, the force of it travels through her very bones, a cruel mimicry of a rifle shot, and more than the feeling of it, just the thought makes her want to cry out.

It is all too easy to get caught up in the minutiae, find shelter there, when before her very eyes the universe itself is shaken and resettled.

She was too late.

Too late, and Anakin will die for it.

She closes her eyes– the dawn light seems too bright, too hopeful, for such a scene. It does not make sense, for her family to die bathed in the warmth of light, when surely at their loss the universe should darken and even the stars themselves mourn.

All the way here, she had purpose– a drive, to move, to run and fight and complete this mission, defy the dying breaths of this war–

She has failed. Ahsoka flounders, confused– horrified, grieving–

What does she do? Her master, Anakin, is dying–

She chokes back a sob; fails, and the noise comes out strangled, ghastly with disappointment, loss.

Her eyes are shut against the light. Against the horrible scene, the pain on Anakin’s– Skyguy’s– face, the blood–

_–the very Universe itself is unsteady, her balance upset as she cries, her voice echoed around her–_

_–someone takes her hand._ Someone leads her out of the dark.

Ahsoka opens her eyes, almost reflexive.

“Open your eyes, you should,” Master Yoda says. “Need you here, your Master does.”

Another sob chokes her as it rises; she closes her eyes against a wave of fresh tears.

Small hands touch hers, grasp them tightly; grounding, almost. It’s a blessing, even if she cannot feel grateful for it.

Grief seems to have made a ghost of her. Ahsoka feels insubstantial, immaterial; as if the second Anakin’s knees buckled, her body too succumbed to weakness– or perhaps crumbled on the breeze, untethered without the gravity that Anakin Skywalker brings to those around him. The gravity she has felt every day, unwavering, until– until–

Yoda squeezes her hand, and she is back. The dawn smiles down at her, and she wants to scream, rage, at it– at the universe, that it should dare– that it could even think–

“Focus, you should,” Yoda says, firmer. 

Slowly, she moves her head to where Anakin lies, where Rex had dropped to his knees on the other side of her Master’s body and now, with the absence of any treatment– with the absence of hope for her Master– just cradles it, gently. One arm around his shoulders, supporting his head. The other holding his torso steady.

As he does, he keeps his eyes fixed on his General, his Jedi, watching. Keeping watch, she realises, keeping him safe, in the only way that is possible, now–

But Rex, too, is hurting. Ahsoka glances at his expression.

The look on his face–

She can’t take it. She looks away, back to her Master. Back to Anakin.

Anakin’s chest still moves; jerky, laboured, as he rasps each breath. Ahsoka’s head spins; Yoda squeezes her hand again.

She moves forward.

“Hey–” she cuts herself off at the telltale feeling of a sob rising up her throat.

“Hey, Skyguy.”

There’s no answer. Anakin’s chest shudders through another breath. Through the linen shirt, the deep red of the wound deepens, darkens; from the corner of her eye, indistinct, she catches a glimpse of his abdomen, fibres sticking to open flesh where the fabric was ruined by blaster bolts.

Ahsoka snaps her eyes away, glad for the shadow her eyelashes cast. She finds that she does not want to see the truth of it.

So; she tries for a smile. Swallows back the sobs, the tears, the wailing that claws for freedom in her chest, and steadies her voice.

“You always did have a flair for the dramatic,” she chokes out against the grief, and reaches with her free hand for her Master’s. Holds it, firmly; doesn’t squeeze.

He always used to squeeze back. She doesn’t think she would be able to handle it, if he didn’t squeeze back.

His fingers are still warm with life, but he isn’t– isn’t here, isn’t conscious. Not fully. When the blasters had fired, when the bolts had made impact, he had cried out at the pain, something uncontrollable. The fear of every hero at the final monster, the final blow.

For just a second, open space and dawn light become a shadowed alleyway, reflections of neon; the body before her has ginger hair.

Ahsoka blinks it away. She does not think of how she has been here before.

Beside her, Rex holds his General, his friend and confidant and brother-in-arms ever-so-gently, and it feels like a memory. It feels like another scene, another story, repeated over and over again.

He is whispering something, she realises, and though she doesn’t wish to eavesdrop, from the white noise and clamour words begin to form.

“No, brother,” he is whispering. “Oh, no,” his voice is choked, gravelled with something undefinable. Orpheus didn’t suffer twice; Rex yet seems damned to travel that path countless times.

His face…

“Not again,” he whispers. He cradles Anakin as he has so many times on the battlefield the bodies of his brothers, dead and dying, bodies still warm. The realisation is something horrifying.

He has held too many of his brothers as they die. “Not again,” he breathes. “General– Anakin– not like Fives, not–”

_–again._

The Clone Wars have not yet ended. They die as the warmth leaves Skyguy, leaves Master Windu–

They die as the war claims its last casualties.

Rex is crying.

Even Orpheus was not doomed to suffer the same fate twice.

“Stay with me, brother,” Rex keeps repeating. Something futile, a plea said to many. Said to the latest in a long line of casualties, the final theft from a man who has lost so many. 

“Stay with me,” he whispers. A last request unheard.

Ahsoka stutters a breath.

“Everything is going to be okay,” she says to the body, quiet. There’s no response.

“Once,” she whispers, “you said you wouldn’t ever let anything hurt me.” It’s an odd memory; darkened, muddied by uncertainty, but she remembers the look in Anakin’s eyes as she told him to trust her. Remembers his fear, his promise–

“I always believed you,” she says. “I knew you’d protect me. You have, you know. What you taught me– it’s saved my life, over and over again.”

“Thank you, Master.”

Movement catches her eye as Obi-Wan arrives, dropping to his knees with a choked cry as he reaches out to take some of the weight from Rex. Holding Anakin’s head in his lap. It’s an old motion, something committed to muscle memory, and she wants to cry.

Beside him, Padmé crumples. Cups, with trembling hands, her Master’s face.

“Oh, _Ani,_ ” she chokes out. “Ani, _no._ ”

There is a golden band on her ring finger.

Ahsoka is shaking, but– Yoda still stands beside her. Still holds her hand.

“A good Jedi, you are, Anakin Skywalker,” he murmurs.

Ahsoka’s eyes close–

Rex cries out. Anakin’s eyes are open , his chest heaving, his focus not here with them but somewhere beyond, somewhere painful.

_“Master,”_ she calls, panicked, cold fear weighting every bone. There are tears on her cheeks, but she doesn’t care; wishes, desperate, for silence, not the awful, pained sound her Master makes at the hole in his gut, not his scared breathing.

She wants to cry; her lungs are a prison of her design, suffocating the sobs as they try to rise.

Ahsoka is not here to grieve. If she could not save her Master, she will keep him company as he dies.

“Anakin,” she says. “Anakin, it’s okay. It’s _okay,_ ” she sobs, and–

His eyes land on her. Fix, for a second, on her face, then on Obi-Wan’s, on Padmé’s, before sliding away. He shudders in a breath, slow. Deep, without any of the pain his previous gasps had caused him.

Yoda’s hand still grips hers, but his eyes are closed, his other hand outstretched.

Slowly, her hand is squeezed.

Anakin’s eyes are open. He stares at the sky.

He doesn’t exhale.

As he dies, Anakin Skywalker is loved. By the universe, by its people; by the stories and all who will tell them. By everything beyond.

_Once upon a time, the stars wept for their child as all parents do, in pride and grief._

As he dies, Anakin Skywalker sheds a tear.

The sky is reflected in his eyes.

Mace Windu closes his eyes at the order to _fire,_ and he does not wake up. Even Caleb’s cries, Depa’s weeping does not rouse him.

Neyo, helmet forgotten, holds his body tight, shaking shoulders concealed by the embrace.

His first, and only, Padawan kisses his forehead.

She will tell his story to all she meets, until the very stars whisper his name.

Mace would do no less for her, were it he that held Depa through her last breaths.

In between blinks, Mace slides back into the dream. Back into the Temple, home, the peace and quiet.

Depa, her Padawan braid hanging from her shoulder, drags him off to spar in the salles, her laughter following them through the corridors, and Mace smiles. Caleb, still an Initiate, joins them, too; Yoda arrives, teacup in hand, serene. Mischief twinkles in his eyes.

It feels a little like deja vu, feels like a story told before and now again– but Mace does not fight the dream. Allows himself to feel the sun, for now. For every second to come until the stars burn.

They spar. Purple and green cast their hues on the walls, a dance that only master and student can perform.

Depa smiles, and it feels like an ending. Feels like an epilogue to some great story, the ones that people tell in whispers, the ones he used to read her before she slept; feels like the last notes of a symphony drifting into the air.

It feels like _rest_.

Mace Windu chooses to rest.

As he dies, Mace Windu is at peace, and his family– _the Jedi–_ are safe.

As he dies, Mace Windu is finally allowed to rest. 

His soul joins the canon of every person who has ever lived. A great story to be whispered by the stars, eons after his death.

As he dies, Mace Windu smiles.

_We are what we leave behind._

The Republic will continue.

Obi-Wan carried Anakin’s body back to the Temple for the funeral, she remembers. In truth, the moments after are all a haze of grief and tears.

Now, Ahsoka Tano stands at the monument that stands outside the Senate building, at the entrance to the garden they left to grow in the crashed remains of the Invisible Hand.

It was supposed to be a metaphor; peace from sacrifice. Life beginning in the ruins war left behind.

Ahsoka reaches out. It is an early hour, yet all she can feel is _life._

Overhead, the sky is grey. Her cloak is, too, something old she found in her Master’s rooms _after_ , and–

The other thing she found is clasped in her hand. She brought it here to say goodbye.

Ostensibly, the monument is to every soul that died to the Clone Wars, to the machinations of the Sith.

Still, there are three names–

Those who died fighting Sidious. Preventing his plans.

ARC Trooper Fives. Jedi Master Mace Windu.

Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker.

Rex is waiting at the entrance to the park. It has been three days since her Knighting, and though she is due for her first mission–

Obi-Wan has her Padawan beads; keeps them, beside Anakin’s braid, in a wooden box under his bed.

She wanted to give something to Skyguy, too.

“Hey, Master,” she whispers. Her voice wobbles. “You did it,” she says, and perhaps there is little to say, but she wants to, needs to talk, needs to hear his voice again–

Needs him to be alive, be here, in all the ways he isn’t. All the ways he will never be again.

Ahsoka allows herself to cry. The first step, it is, Yoda had told her, to allow grief to flow, though difficult, it can be, to move past emotion, and Ahsoka has lived by that advice every day.

And so–

Every day, it gets a little easier. Every day, her heart is a little lighter.

It feels like a betrayal, to be happy without Skyguy, though she knows it is not.

He would want her to live on. He would want her to be happy.

This is a step, she thinks. This, right here, is a step.

“Thank you,” she breathes to the morning air. The world is a little lighter.

Ahsoka looks at the monument once again.

He’s gone, but he’s at peace, and Ahsoka doesn’t know what she’ll do without him, how she’ll continue without his guidance, but—

Maybe that’s the _point_. She’ll never feel his arms around her again, but she knows there’ll never be a day he isn’t with her, that both of them aren’t watching over the Jedi Order, and she may not know now how to continue on, but she’ll find out. He taught her to do that. She’ll honour him.

There’s a first step here that she has to make, though.

Ahsoka kneels, presses her forehead to the granite. For just a moment, it’s almost warm, like the times they had kissed Keldabe in the field, the silent entreaty between kin to “ _come back_ ”.

He didn’t this time.

His lightsaber is a familiar weight in her hand, and peeling her fingers from it is a trial. Each point of contact removed is a loss, a piece of herself ripped away, clinging to the metal and the crystal inside, whose song she still remembers coming from the lightsaber.

Anakin’s lightsaber.

She can’t help the tears.

Ahsoka lets go, turns around, and walks towards her future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's a wrap! thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this last chapter!
> 
> for real, thank you to everyone who has left kudos and commented. you all live in my head rent free. now this is finally done, I'll be able to move on to my ever-growing wip pile, so stay tuned lol I have some stuff on the way.
> 
> know that on the group chat, more than one of my friends has asked me who hurt me in relation to this fic lmao.
> 
> hope you enjoyed, and feel free to yell at me/find some snippets of my writing on tumblr at [nightdotlight](https://nightdotlight.tumblr.com)!
> 
> have a good one, everybody. <3

**Author's Note:**

> this idea ate my brain and I wanted to post at least part of it by the end of june, so instead of one massive update I instead made it a chaptered fic.


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